Tinker Tailor Soldier Mutant
by Falsey
Summary: Britain, 1996; Spies, Espionage, Betrayal. The British Secret Intelligence allows superhumans into its ranks in a desperate effort to combat the growing threat of mutant terrorism. But as a sinister conspiracy unfolds, whose really pulling the strings? AU, with sides switches and allies turned enemies in a setting where notions of 'Righteous' and 'Evil' need not apply.
1. Part One - Chapter One

_Chapter One_

_"Shaved head, rave heads, on the pill, got too much time to kill; get into bands and gangs - oh, here they come, the beautiful ones."_

Suede, _Beautiful Ones_

* * *

As she looked up at the white building, Jean Grey found herself wishing that she had brought her parka. All though she hardly disliked the trench coat she was wearing (and if it wasn't too vain to admit, adored how its plain white colour complimented her hair), Jean hardly expected it to take so long for the target to appear; the idea of spending four hours of an October evening out on the streets of South Kensington hadn't crossed her mind when she was dressing. Although by that point, everyone involved in the mission was well aware of that fact.

"Well, they can hardly blame me for that" she mumbled to herself. "If they were as bored as I've been these past four hours, I'm sure they'd be exploiting any sort of telepathic hotline they could get their grubby hands on."

She lit another cigarette, her mood having thoroughly ruined the last. The young barista inside the coffee shop had noticed the abnormal amount of time she was taking to drink her coffee after an hour and, having finished debating with himself whether or not to approach her, struck up the courage to talk to her after another two. His concern for her would perhaps have been endearing had it not been for the images of (presumably) her own naked body crossing his mind every twenty second during their short chat. That thought only made her feel more miserable however, as she once more noted how that had almost certainly been the case in all her first conversations with members of the male species. Just as her thoughts dwelled on the only exception to that rule, a black cab pulled in front of the hotel's entrance. After a noticeable delay, the ignition was turned off and three men in suits left the cab, each surrounding a notably less-suited man. She closed her eyes and focused. After a few moments, an unheard voice echoed from nowhere in particular.

_(are they going to kill me are they going to kill me didn't I do what I promised are they going to kill me)_

She noticed as his eyes darted back to the cab as he was marched up the front stairs of the hotel, as did one of the suited men. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and forced him on, causing the nervous man to jump, resulting in a sharp pain shooting through her head. Before she could gather herself, the man had already been guided into the front lobby of the Kensington Hotel. _Drat_, she thought. _And there disappears the peaceful solution_.

_(Ground Control, this is Major Tom. The target has entered the building and out of my range. And next time, it's your turn at street duty, Kurt.)_

After a few seconds, a voice echoed in reply. Needless to say the voice was unheard by the old woman at the table next to her, who Jane would later claim displayed a striking resemblance to Mother Theresa.

She didn't.

_(Yeah, I sort of noticed the band of eerie looking, overdressed men walking past me. Thanks.)_

She snubbed out her cigarette.

_(And Jean, no one appreciates being forced to listen to disembodied whining for three straight hours.)_

* * *

He had already followed them from the lobby, keeping his distance as he carried his empty suitcase behind him. Thankfully, the target arrived just before the receptionist called security. _Apparently standing in a lobby minding your own business is a crime now, _he thought, recalling how the blond (and a little bit too chubby for his tastes) receptionist had finally had enough of his excuse of still being undecided on whether or not he'd be booking a room. Only five minutes ago, she had threatened having him forcibly removed from the hotel. While she had her back turned he disappeared, before appearing again across the room, picked up his suitcase, before appearing outside of the breakfast room and, consequently her view. As the five men walked by him, he had caught a glimpse of the man from the photo.

_(Don't do anything I wouldn't, Kurt. You just need to get their room number.)_

_Christ, I know I'm new but this is ridiculous. _He followed them down the hall from the breakfast room. _It's not like I'm a fucking psycho like Zippo_. As he shadowed them down to the elevators, he decided there and then that he missed the smell of hotels. He noted that the bellboy merely stepped aside as they passed, not even offering his assistance. Now that he thought about it, they hadn't even checked in at the front desk. _I guess they already sorted out all their travel arrangements. _He watched as they pulled the man into the small metallic room and grimaced as the elevator door closed, cutting them out of view.

_Great, I guess this is where it's up to me_. He let maybe ten seconds pass, before glancing to the stairwell, then to the velvet carpet of the lobby and finally to the ceiling. He noticed a small crack and thought of hairy snakes. _Five feet of thick flooring. Just five feet of thick flooring._ He shut his eyes, whispered a prayer and then felt himself fall for half a second. He caught his breath after hearing his feet hit the floor. _Ok, four feet of thick flooring._ When he opened his eyes there was no longer a crack running across the ceiling. He glanced around him at an empty hallway of room numbers and waited another five seconds, before focusing on the ceiling and closing his eyes once more. He repeated this same procedure until he was on the fourth floor. The group of men were walking down the corridor, until reaching a room a dozen or so away from the elevator doors. They didn't even pay him a glance, but he couldn't blame them for that; who would pay a second look to someone who could double for an even less attractive Javis Cocker in _tweed_? They forced the small man inside, before closing the door. _They've locked it_, he noted. He made his way down the corridor and pressed his ear against the door.

Shouting, and the occasional sound of a heavy thump. He could hear a man crying inside. _They're beating the poor fella, _he thought._ This sounds like the worst stag-do ever_. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the scene; two men probably within close proximity to the weeping man, one interrogating while the other continued beating him. He couldn't get a good idea where the remaining man was. Standing around the room somewhere? Did they have weapons in hand? _What if I say I just can't do it? Too many different layers in the wall? Wrong temperature in the room? The room already hit its limit of white, suspicious-looking males? It's not like there's an "All you need to know about teleportation" guide those guys can read back at home._

_(Kurt, what's going on?)_

_(They're in room 154 Jane. It's all on me now, isn't it?)_

_(Yep. Good luck, Elf!)_

_Great_. He breathed in and closed his eyes. The hostage was maybe five feet away. If there was a slight miscalculation, the resulting panic among the suits should give him enough time to grab the hostage. _This is just great_. He imagined the room. He imagined the position of the three men in the centre. He imagined himself beside the target. _Sometimes, __I really wish I wasn't such a vital part of the team_, he thought, before disappearing.

* * *

_Kurt? Did you get him out? Give me a reply already so my heart can have a rest)_

She raced up the stairs, past the second floor.

_(Kurt, please just tell me what's going on.)_

She glanced frantically across the both sides of the corridor.

145\. 146. 148.

153.

_Bingo._

_(Jean, there's been a slight problem.)_

She held her right hand against the door and pressed the middle and index fingers of the other against her temple.

_(What is it, Kurt? Have you got the target out?)_

_(No, but I'm having a good chat with his friends in here. Although I'm getting some bad vibes from the one holding his gun to my head.)_

* * *

"Who sent you, you mutant _shit? Who do you work for?!" _asked the man holding his gun to his head.

"Would you believe me if I said I was freelance?"

That comment earned him a fist to his stomach, courtesy of goon holding him back by his arms. He gasped in pain and fell to the floor, unable to breath. As he tried to catch his breath, he lifted his head back from the floor and looked at the target. _The idiot ran away from me!_ He bowed his head again, struggling for air. _Surely anything suddenly appearing is better than his current predicament!_ He made eye contact with the man, who uttered a short gasp of his own and cowered even further into the corner he fallen into. The man bending his arms behind his back tightened his grip in response.

"Caught your breath yet, scum? What do they call you, freak? The _Comedian_?" He grabbed him by his hair and pulled his head up, pressing his own gun into his forehead.

_When I'm in these sort of situations, why is pissing of the guy with a gun always my move?_ He wondered where the hell the other two were. Maybe if he kept him talking, he'd buy them enough time to save his life_. And like hell they owe it to me, I didn't even sign up for this mission_.

"Who _sent_ you?! Speak, mutie _freak_!" _Oh, that's what the accent is. These guys are American, of all thing!. _He glanced around the room; besides the two men keeping him at gun point, the remaining three had scattered around the room, guns all drawn on him. _It'll be fine Kurt, they said. You just need to save some Russian from a few bad people, they said._

"Hey man, I'm just room service. Was about to tell you what time the restaurant opens tonight, when you guys started waving guns in my face."

A sharp pain. He vomited.

_(Kurt, what's going on in there? Did you get out? All I can hear is shouting.)_

He gasped for air and found himself choking. He tried to spit out the remainder of the sick, but felt his mouth roughly gripped by the two hands of the man who had just butted him with the side of his gun.

_(Kurt?!)_

"Taste good, freak? I hope so, because if you don't start talking I'll make sure you go out choking on your own fucking shit!"

_(I just fucking puked on myself, Jean! That's how well it's going! I didn't even sign up for this one and here I am, eating my own fucking vomit!)_

"Now, nod if you're ready to speak. We wouldn't want to see you… Matt, why are you fucking around with the lock? Get back ove-"

For a second, Kurt Wagner thought the man had been generous again with his gun. A roar swept through his ears. He screamed. No, that wasn't him; he had too much of a mouthful to have screamed. He found himself falling to his side, retching the remainder of his previous session onto the floor. After catching his breath, his face still against the soiled carpet, he glanced across the scene in front of him.

"Put the gun down and you won't be joining your friend on the pavement, asshole!"

It took him a good few seconds to register that he was even in the same room. While the left half of the room looked as well-kept as you could expect from a five star hotel, the right side looked like it had fallen victim to a half-hearted wrecking ball. Floor boards were now uprooted and the bed was now, at most, child sized. The man who Kurt has spent the last few minutes befriending was nowhere to be seen, although the newly installed collapsed wall that now linked the room to the high-street probably explained why. Before he had time to come to term with this new development, he felt himself pulled roughly to his feet.

"I said put the gun down! No one else needs to get hurt!"

* * *

_Man, you must look real tough now Jean Grey, _she thought, her arm pointed at the remaining thug in front of her; her hand outstretched. _He would have to be blind not to notice how badly you're shaking right now._ She forced such thoughts from her mind. The man had grabbed Kurt in the confusion and now had his arm around his neck, his spare hand gripping a gun to his head. If there was any chance that both Kurt and she were leaving this room walking, she needed to force her mind to be calm.

"What the fuck have you _done? _What did you do to _Matt_? Where the _hell_ is Troy?!"

_Calm it, Jean._

_Calm it._

"No one else has to get hurt here, friend. Just let him go and we'll let you walk away. You can go back home to Washington and see Angie again. You were going to propose to her this month, weren't you?"

"Get out my head, mutant bitch! Get out my head before I put a bullet in yours!"

There was no way she could pull the same treatment on him as she had his friend. Making the guy who was currently slumped on the floor behind her unlock the door was easy; she had time to prepare herself and his mental state was perfectly calm; she had easily managed to jump into his mind.

This was different. The man with a gun to Kurt's head was hysterical. _She_ was hysterical. He would immediately notice if she tried to pry herself into his head. _He'd have all the warning to end at least one live in this room_, she thought. _I've got to find a way to talk him down._

"Listen. You've got a great girl at home to go back to. You said so yourself only earlier this evening. All you have to do is…"

A sizzling sound.

She realised she was now talking to an empty room.

* * *

He didn't know who had started screaming first.

As they felt themselves freefalling, they had clutched onto each other like two love-struck teens dry humping. He felt his throat throbbing from the screaming and the cold air.

The cold air. He struggled to calm himself. After a few seconds, he had forced an end to his own screaming. He began focusing on the task at hand and, after a few moments, began screaming again. He desperately clutched to the other man, their arms embracing each other body as they fell hundreds and hundreds of feet.

_No_, he thought. _Now's not the time to be making a new friend_. He tried to squirm his way out the man's hold. He tried to look towards the ground, but the icy blast of air that hit his eyes forced them closed. He lifted his right leg between the two of them and, lowering his head into the man's shoulder, bit in. The man jerked back, his arms around him loosening, giving Kurt just the space he needed. He straightened his leg and, with that single jerk, sent the man flying off him. He twisted his body around in mid-air until he was falling chest first, opening his eyes once more.

What greeted him was the sight of a mass concrete metropolis. Had he not already had emptied the contents of his stomach, he would've probably wretched again from the sight.

He focused his gaze directly downwards, forcing his eyes to remain open. He could see what looked like a church, with a large roof besides it. _My roof? No, any roof will do._ He shut his eyes and imagined that roof. He imagined himself on that roof. He imagined himself on that roof, his face against its concrete. _Hairy snakes_, he thought. _Hairy snakes._

He found himself on a roof, his face pressed against the concrete.

* * *

She had tried to establish a psychic link with Kurt, but the unintelligible screaming that poured into her brain sent a bolt of pain through her head. She ran her hands up her face and clenched. She tried to settle the pain in her mind, the pain that had sent her to her knees. _My head feels like it's being filled with concrete_, she thought. _It's going to just go pop and I'll go insane._ She bit her lower lip. The sensation of agony felt like it was spreading through her brain like a drop of blood in water, slowly making its way through every valley and crevice.

_You're in control Jean. Shut out the voices. You're in-_

A click, then the feeling of cold metal being pressed against her head. _Oh, this must be that Matt guy. How silly, I forgot all about him._

"Where are they, cutie? What happened to my partners?"

The gun was pressed even further against the back of her head. _This is how I die then. At least Kurt might've got out safe. _She closed her eyes. _At least the headache's gone._

"I'm going to count to five and if you don't tell me what happened here, I'm… I'm… Oh."

She felt the gun sliding across the back of her head and heard a thud besides her. She could smell cooked meat and an image of a long-forgotten roast dinner with her parents quickly flashed through her mind.

"Well Jeanie, I'd be lying if I said this couldn't have gone a bit _smoother_."

She slowly opened her eyes and turned to the direction the heavy thud had come from. On the ground, laying face first into the carpet, was the remaining American agent; the one who was thinking of his kids back home just before she had made him unlock the door. His eyes had rolled almost entirely into the back of his head and his mouth was wide open; drool slowly spreading into the carpet. Smoke slowly rose from a burning hole in the back of his head. _Ok, I definitely don't fancy another cigarette now._

"Weren't you supposed to hold back unless any more suits appeared? Not that I'm complaining, _John._"

She felt a hand gently grip her shoulder. She grabbed the arm it was attached to and pulled herself back onto her feet. She turned to face her savior; a blond man, in his early twenties, with unruly curvy blond hair. He wore the smuggest smile Jean thought she had ever seen in her life. He closed his eyes and breathed out a small laugh.

"Sorry Cap'n, but after half the content of a room landed in front of the hotel, I used my intuition to deduce you needed some help." He closed the lid of his lighter and glanced around the room; she followed his gaze. Collapsed against the wall, shaking nervously as they spoke, was the Russian. On meeting their gaze he let out a small squeak, before futilely trying to cram himself even further into the only corner which still remained on the other side of the room.

"Well Red, I'll leave you to handle the mark while I see if our little Jewish friend is still ticking." The blond man made his way towards the door, turning his head to address her as he left the room. "You've always been better at these public relation things anyhow."

She sighed, a smile crossing her face. She closed her eyes and breathed. _No headache. No migraine. Perfect_, she thought. She jumped on the spot, before opening her eyes and slowly making her way across the room, carefully stepping over the body of the man she assumed again was Matt. The man began pleading in Russian, clawing at the wall as she approached. It was now dark outside and rain began seeping in through broken wall from the high-street. As she arrived, she closed her eyes and in her mind began focusing on the panicked man at her feet, doing her best to spread a sense of serenity through his mind. She heard his breathing begin to slow and, opening her eyes, bent down to face level with the man, placing her hand between her thighs. She offered him her most cheerful grin.

"I know it looks bad, but would you believe me if I said we were the _good guys_?"


	2. Part One - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

_"The Head of State, has called for me, by name. But I don't have time for him."_

Radiohead, _Lucky_

* * *

"Yes Mr Anderson, I can assure you I'm taking this completely serious. It's your suggestion of any manner of subterfuge on our part I find nonsensical."

Looking out over the Thames, a man named Patrick Summers listened to two of the most powerful men in the world argue like children.

"Don't bullshit me, Xavier. My men were in the country for less than an hour. Are you really trying to suggest that your _old friend_ just struck gold by luck?"

He sighed. _This entire conversation is pointless_, thought the Scotsman. The details surrounding this apparent crisis hadn't been made clear to him yet, but he knew what it would all lead to. Within maybe twelve hours, he would be asked to send the agents serving under him into some new warzone.

"We're perfectly aware of how worrying the timing of this all is. But I think we'd both agree that MI5 would benefit in no way by leaking information to a known terrori-"

"You know fully well that's not what I'm trying to suggest, Xavier. Despite our, well…" The man on the screen paused. He took a clear moment to find the right word. "…d_ifferences,_ I know you're equally aware just how badly this situation could damage relations between both our nations. And that's not even going into the likely Russian fallout."

_Russia_. His eyes followed a small barge makes its way up the River. _I don't think anyone's going to shed a tear if this blows up in their face_.

"I know _perfectly_ well what you're suggesting, senator. And it's not only absurd, but obscene. Every serviceman in this initiative has been handpicked by myself and other top government officials. I find your implication insulting, to say the least."

"I'm sorry if that's the case, Xavier. But I've been dealing with your kind for many years and perhaps the most important lesson I've learned is that you're all far more likely to side with your own than any _human_ government. Either way, us in Washington we'll be keeping our hands clear of this affair. It's up to your so-called _initiative_ now to deal with this."

* * *

"You're wasted at that carnival their running at _Strawberry Fields_, you know that right?" he said, in thick Russian. "My god, what I'd do to be working with someone like you Miss Munroe." He took another sip of his coffee and looked out of the window. She followed his gaze and glanced across the empty high street. Rain fell onto the pavement, filling the silent void. _The rain here tastes different_, she thought. _This is Russian rain. It's far heavier._

"Well Boris, we both know that's impossible, considering the current climate here. To be frank, I think I think I'd be lynched the moment I stepped a foot into the Kremlin."

"My dear Miss Munroe, that's all changing now. Give it ten years, will be the most liberal nation in the world!" He lent back and bellowed a heartfelt laugh. "Even the most hardline of our officials would be bewitched the moment they laid eyes on you!" He was a portly man, who took his coffee with a drop of whisky. _American whisky_, she noted.

"I'm flattered Mr Barr, truly. Perhaps I'll make a mental note of it." She gave him a wink. _That'll get his blood boiling,_she thought. Boris Barr was a portly man, with one arm and fewer remaining hairs on his head. He had been her contact within the Russian circle for years now. Never giving up too much, never asking for too much. Not a mole, but a half-hearted opportunist. They'd trade information and tidbit, all approved by their seniors, in exchange for similar information from the other side. Most of it was American related; what the British knew about the Americans and, in exchange, perhaps a little line of Russian intelligence.

But this was a peculiar little situation the two of them found each other in, as they took turns sipping their coffee on that dreary Russian afternoon. They sat facing each other not as allies or enemies, but a bizarre mixture of the two. What the Americans had meant to hand over to the Initiative yesterday was a Russian turncoat; a scientist involved in the Russian military science department. For whatever reason, he had turned to the Americans due to fearing for his life if he remained in Russia but, not wanting to dirty their hands and not holding any real interest in what he had to report, the Americans had turned him back over to the MI6. However, the meeting at the South Kensington Hotel yesterday had been botched before the exchange could take place. Now, I certain "Tutor" had key information that the secret services rather he didn't.

What both Munroe and Barr understood was that an equal deal had to be sorted out. It was quite simple, if allowed to be simplified; the vague information that British services had gained was on a Russian military experiment dubbed "Weapon X". Although the nature of the project was up in the air at the moment, it was clear those involved felt like they had made some manner of breakthrough. Which of course, lit the warning flags for their most personal enemy; Russia's own security service, who would be damned if they allowed the military to gain some new advantage over them. However, the Russian military development department was utterly off-limit for the country's own security service, so Barr's department needed a third party to sort the issue out. And so MI6, who had blown the existence of the project to Barr's department, were allowed to act to detain those involved; as long as any information gained was then relayed back to Moscow.

* * *

The screen went black. _Even the most powerful men in the world are afraid of being in the same room as Charles Xavier_, he thought.

Behind him, the wheelchair bound man closed his eyes and sighed. He was bald, in his mid-fifties and, at least in Summers' opinion, the last chance in the world for both mutants _and_ humans. A twenty-something year old women made her way from the side of the room and gripped the handles of his wheelchair, pulling him around to face Patrick. Patrick turned in reply and was greeted by a warm smile from the man.

"Please deal with this for me, Scott. I think Miss Munroe will be a capable choice to head the operation in Russia. You may pick the remaining members of the task force and, of course, all files related to this situation will be made open for you."

A frown crossed Summers' face. "Charles, surely we're not seriously going to aid the Russians of all people here. I think the thought of fighting our own kind to protect Russian interests will make a lot of the team ill."

"I think that's a remarkably ignorant comment, Scott." Xavier gripped the arms of his chair, a glare forming on his face against his subordinate. "You know what's at stake here so please, if only for the next twenty-four hours, put your childish pride aside and do your duty. And from here on out, we're operating strictly on a codename basis till this crisis is resolved. Please make sure your team is aware of that, Cyclops."

The woman wheeled him away from Summers, pushing him towards the door. As she went to open it for the two of them, the man turned his head around and spoke once more over his shoulder.

"By the way, I'm of course aware of the personal nature this mission holds for you. I just want you to know that I too share that dilemma. Now, Miss MacTaggert, do you mind escorting me to my vehicle? I believe I've left my driver waiting far too long as it is…"

* * *

"Would you care for a smoke, Miss Munroe?" asked Barr, holding out a pack of Benson &amp; Hedges Gold. She took one and slowly placed it between her lips, making sure he was watching. She pretended to look desperately in her suit pocket for a lighter before he offered her his own. "Now then, I believe it's time to get to business. Our own intelligence has pinpointed today's little exchange at a small apartment just down on Red Street, here." He passed her a small note, with an address and room number writ down on it. "Obviously, we won't be getting involved if things go sour. Nor will we admit any involvement if one of your operatives are caught."

She slid the note into her inner suit pocket and finished her cigarette. "Thank you, Boris. Obviously we'll be sure to slip you guys something in a few months," she took a sip and finished her coffee "and maybe the next time I'm called her on duty, we can meet up for a drink. I'll leave you to figure out which bar." She gave him a wink, before slowly easing herself to her feet.

"Miss Munroe, for you, I'll treat you to one of the finest resteraunts Mother Russia has to offer. And if you guys finally catch up to him, do send "Tutor" my regards." Barr pointed to the stump where his left one arm once was, before replying with a wink in tow. "And of course, to dear Charles Xavier as well."

* * *

"Do you really think there could be a leak in the Initiative, Mr Xavier?"

They had left the main building, leaving Summers alone to deal with arranging the mission in Russia. Wheeling Xavier through the underground car park, lit only by pale orange lights on the ceiling, she finally found the courage to speak her mind.

"I don't find the idea that someone is being manipulated too far-fetched. But the very idea that someone is willing acting as a double agent is downright absurd. Especially considering that I cross paths with most of our Sentinels on a daily basis. Trust me, if there was a spy, I'd know."

"Just like that? Simply being in their presence would be enough?"

"Miss MacTaggert, I can't begin to describe how humorous it is being around someone desperately trying to keep something a secret when you're a telepath. They practically just scream out loud their dirty laundry, if you don't mind my crassness."

She bit her lip as they approached the parked vehicle, its headlights on and waiting. It had been mere days since she had been assigned as his personal aid. That is, that was the official title. Both her superiors and Xavier were aware that her new role was to keep a constant _human_ presence around the man.

"Mr Xavier, could I beg you a favour?"

"Of course, my dear. And please, Charles is more than fine."

"Could you read my mind?"

They stopped before his car, the chauffer already holding the door open for him. A silence followed, broken only slightly by the sound of distant car engines.

"Miss MacTaggert, I want you to understand that I hold no sense of mistrust towards you. I know that your presence is merely a formality decided by people with far more expensive tastes in government-paid vehicles than myself."

"Please, Charles. I'd like us to start our time together on a transparent understanding, if you know what I mean."

He nodded and wheeled himself around to face her. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. _This is it_, she thought. _I'm seeing perhaps the most powerful mutant in this country using his most famous ability. _After a couple of seconds, he opened his eyes again and gave her a warm smile.

"You passed with flying colours, Moira. Now if you don't mind, could you assist me with getting into my lift for this evening?"

* * *

He poured a generous guess of two shots into the glass and took a sip, before pouring even more into it. Xavier had left three hours ago and already a private, unmarked jet was flying over France and heading East, carrying the most unusual passengers. In forty minutes it would set down in Cherkavi, Russia. Within two hours, its crew would be approaching a small Russian military base, of course unannounced.

He took a sip and looked outside his office at the Thames once more, now darkened by its reflection of the night's sky and marked by orange lampposts. He wondered about the barge he had seen earlier. He wondered if he had chosen the right agents for tonight. The right people.

He wondered if he would see each one of those people again.

He took a gulp of the whisky before turning around and approaching his desk. He wondered if his collegues in the service knew about his drinking problem; that he never spent nights like this at all sober. He wondered if the thought had crossed his mind when in Xavier's company. If so, he had turned a blind eye on it so far. _Probably for the best, _he thought._ Any pity on the matter from him would probably be the blow that drives me over the edge_.

Setting his whiskey glass down on the desk in front of him, Summers' once more browsed through the documents laid before him which, just like Xavier had promised, had been made unclassified to him just after he had left. Most were clearly British in nature, detailing both the suspicions and evidence of some manner of Russian subterfuge, while the others, based on the nature of the language, were clearly from their so-called friends in the CIA. _And the truth will set you free,_ he thought before his eyes were drawn to another document, set next to a bottle of Glenmorangie. This one was clearly Russian in nature; a report made by their missing whistle-blower, who should've been handed over to their custody by Americans agents earlier that day. _I really hope Vlad's enjoying his stay here so far_. He picked up the document with one hand, freeing his other for his drink. His eyes once more glanced its heading: _Classified: The Weapon X Project. _


	3. Part One - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

_"I spy a boy. I spy a girl. I spy the worst place, in the world. In the whole wide world."_

Pulp, _I Spy_

* * *

Divorce; a two syllable word that always struck Summers as ruthlessly dark. Just two little syllables mouthed (always slowly, never fast), conveying so much disappointment and misery that he couldn't help but refill his whisky glass. He looked across his dark office room, the blinds raised down, unable to gather the strength to raise himself to his feet and undim the lights. Shiny Mahogany and expensive furniture, the best a government employed agent could get. Divorce; he couldn't hardly bring himself to speak the word out loud anymore and, when he did, it was only as a form of self-torture.

But then again, who was there to say it to? Xavier, the so-called "Professor", was attending some fancy government party, rubbing sides with the hypocrites who wasted their money into the Initiative they had both given everything for. Monroe, his normal drinking companion, was out in Russia. He had sent her to Russia. He had sent her once again to risk life and limb for a cause he found himself placing less and less faith in by the day. "I'm a stockbroker of lives." he declared out loud, to no one in particular. Hank? He haven't seen him since Xavier talked him into that godforsaken project at the Newford Plant. He took another gulp and grimaced at the taste. Madelyne?

_Madelyne._ The memory of her crossed across his mind from the last time they had met. Her face, wearing a mask he had never seen her choose before. No, not a mask, he couldn't even delude himself with that choice of phrase. A _look_, one by its very definition he knew he would never see again. And the snow, he remembered the snow. It had snowed all that week, from the moment he broke her heart to the very final one; the moment when he knew he would never see his wife again. He swigged back the rest of his whisky and poured himself another glass. _Well, it's whatever o'clock in Moscow_. He had left her a divorcee at the age of, fuck, only 25. Out loud, he said the word. He tried to turn his attention to the last transcript he had received from the agents in Cherkavi. Munroe had finished her meeting with Boris Barr and was approaching the destination with that Pryde girl. Christ, how old was she; eighteen? Nineteen? Had he really sent a teenager on a mission into _fucking Russia?_ Either way, he had no more part to play in the events unfolding at the moment. And so, he was left alone in his office, waiting for the call that whatever Weapon X was, it had been obtained. No Xavier. No Madelyne.

No Jean.

Jean Grey. The red headed nineteen year old telepath. No, she'd be at least twenty one by now. Twenty one to his thirty nine. Far too young to have pursued. Far too young to leave his wife for. And for what? She had left anyway, left him, while he had stayed. She choose the "Tutor" over the "Professor" and, in a way that was explicitly clear, over him. And he had picked Xavier, the man who now spent his days brownnosing politicians and engaging in shady deals to supposedly protect their kind. A man who had raised him like a son. He found the strength to raise himself from the sofa and immediately realised just how drunk he was, the room shaking around him. He closed his eyes and placed his hand over his face, trying to calm the spinning room. _Jean_. He wondered if she was in Russia too, following the same lead that he had sent Monroe and Pryde on. That nineteen year old girl.

He groaned and stumbled into his bathroom. How many men had offices with bathrooms included? But then again, he did spend most of his nights in this building, sleeping in a futon when he was sober enough and the sofa otherwise. He flicked the light switch and winced in pain at the sudden bright light. _My eyes hurt_. He stumbled into the side of the room, his knee hitting against the toilet. He gasped in pain. He raised his arms and held his hand hands against the wall, pushing himself back to his feet. He felt like he was going to vomit in that bright light. He closed his eyes and, with a great deal of guess work, made his way to the sink. _My eyes hurt_. He held himself up against the counter, ready to vomit in the sink. But it never came. Instead, a further pain spread out across his closed eyes. He felt like his very eyes were about to melt. He opened his eyes to look into the mirror and saw only red. A blaze of red. After a few seconds the intense pain subsided and, as he slowly regained his sight, all that remained was a slight burning sensation in his retinas. He looked at where a mirror once stood on the wall, where now only metal liquid slowly dripped from the wall and into the sink.

* * *

She made her way down the street, unbothered by the rain. She pulled the collar of her trenchcoat up to her face and, with her face covered, spoke. "Cyclops, are you reading me? I'm approaching the building." She walked further down the road, past grey apartments and liquor stores. The street was almost deserted, save for a woman pushing an empty pram on the other side of the street and a man in a suit standing against a white delivery fan. She walked past the man, before leaning against the van next to him. She looked up at the apartment in front of them.

"Where's Hitchcock? He's not fucking around in some park again is he?"

"Nah, I got him to stop that a couple of hours ago. He's currently giving us surveillance on these guys. Two of them already in the building, room thirty two on the fifth floor. See that fire escape just there? Will lead you right outside it." The man who spoke looked no more than twenty, with delicately combed blonde hair and a thick Scouser accent. After speaking he leant back, uncrossed his hands and placed them in the pocket of his coat.

"Civvies?"

"None. A gas leak was reported in the building yesterday. These guys definitely have no idea anyone knows about their little exchange, right?"

"Of course not. Only the top brass and _us_ know about this."

"Well either way, here comes the goods." He nodded in the direction of the apartment, a dozen or so blocks down the street. A black van parked in front of it and the two men, of course suited, left the front. They walked to the back of the van and opened the rear door.

"And here," Monroe muttered under her breath, "is our Weapon X."

* * *

He had been back on the couch for thirty minutes or so, having drunk four pints of water in the meanwhile. After the final pint, he had waited by the receiver equipment set up by his desk, barely managing to prop himself up with his arm. After hearing Monroe come through, he had moved to his desk chair. Summers raised the mic to his mouth and spoke.

"Storm, what's going on over there? Do you have visual?"

He waited for a response. For a good while, there was only silence. He eyed the bottle of whisky again, before forcing the thought from his head. _She's good. She won't mess this up._ The burning sensation in his eyes had not faded yet.

"Cyclops, this is Storm. The mark has arrived. Shadowcat has already entered the building. I'll enter by the front entrance and cause a distraction, giving her enough time to nab the _treasure_. Permission to proceed?"

"Granted, Storm. Good luck." He paused for a moment before replying

They needed this. If this went awry, it would stretch out far beyond the corridors of Strawberry Fields. First of all, the American fallout from botching the mission; they had handed over the informant and so far all the SIS had managed was losing their source to an outside faction. Then of course, would be the inevitable Russian frenzy. The department that Barr's served would go hysterical if they were in anyway linked to the events currently unfolding in that shit stain of a Russian town.

So he waited. He waited two minutes and checked his watch. After the next two he checked his Rolex again and thought about another drink. After another two, he put the idea behind him. _I wasn't meant for this kind of thing. _His heart raced throughout, his mind turning to thoughts of Monroe. To thoughts of that teenage girl who was currently within twenty feet of Russian Black Ops. To the Professor. And of course, to Jean. After the final two minutes, he broke.

"Hello, anyone? _Any-fucking-one? _What's going on down there?"

No reply. That could mean anything. They might not have even started yet. It had been less than ten minutes, so why was he panicking so badly? He shouldn't bother them. He should just leave them to it and wait patiently.

"Hello?! Someone give me an update already!"

Static. Someone's microphone was clearly turned on in response. He drew in his breath. After perhaps ten seconds, a voice replied.

"Scotty? Can you hear me man?"

"Codenames, idiot! What's going on there, Iceman?"

"Jesus fuck, the building just _exploded_! The entire floor they were on just went up in fucking flames! I think Monroe just got _shot_!"

* * *

"Jesus Christ, John! What the hell did you just do?!"

They stood alone, in the remains of a charred and still burning room. The rain began to pour in through the rubble and Jean was reminded of the Kensington Hotel. Behind them, the room was unscathed. In front of them was something out of a warzone.

"I just sent a little spark off in every radiator on this floor and multiplied the explosion by five times five. It's cool though – whatever this Weapon X is, it's in the room behind us." She looked behind her and saw that he was right; there was a room, the door closed, behind them. In the state the apartment was now in, she couldn't even guess what sort of room it was, let alone what the wreck they were now in used to be. "Either way," he continued, "I'm going to make sure I hit all of them. By the way, I'm pretty sure I head a gun shot from downstairs. You just grab whatever's in there and run, I'll make my own way out."

"You know," Jean replied, "I was a lot happier _not_ knowing what burnt flesh smelled like before I met you." He smirked, pulled up his hood, and made his way through the wreckage and out of sight. Left alone, she sighed; did she really need to keep letting herself be dragged out to backwater places like this, to babysit psychopaths like _that_? She coughed; the smoke was beginning to fill what was left of the room. Her hair was already dripping from the rain. She turned and then jumped, hearing a click behind her head after taking only two steps.

"Stop right there! You're not going anywhere, ok?"

_How the hell did she get the slip on me?_ A female voice, quite young. _Definitely not Russian_. She raised her arms to the air and focused her mind for a mental barrage. _Why didn't she just shoot me? She's clearly far from the top of her class_. She closed her eyes.

"D-Drop any weapons you have and… and… oh."

She heard a thud and, turning around, stole a glance at the girl she had just slipped into a deep slumber. She had collapsed on the floor, laying on her side. Shoulder length brown hair, clearly still a teenager. _A teenager? Here? Charles, what are you playing at_? After some hesitation, she decided she couldn't leave the girl in a slowly burning room for the Russians to find so, after cursing herself, Jean threw her over her shoulder and carried the girl to the door. Hand over the handle, she prepared herself for whatever existed in the room beyond.

She entered the room, still carrying the girl, and grasped for a light switch until the room was lit by a single dim bulb that hung from the mould infested ceiling. The room was empty, except for what looked like some strange formation of… _something_, wrapped heavily in plastic. _Wait, what's up with the sack on the top_? _Wait…_

She sat the limp agent on the floor and made her way slowly to the object on the other side of the room. The object that those Americans in South Kensington and these Russians had died for. The object that _she_ had help kill for._ Here's our Weapon X._ She stopped at it and sat down on her knees, eyelevel to the burlap sack. She wondered if she should just wait for the others. If she should just leave this supposed weapon of mass interest alone. _But the way it's positioned._ She reached out and grabbed the burlap sack. _There's no way it could be…_

A person.

A _girl_.

Clearly heavily sedated and unconscious, but another girl nonetheless. And young; she reckoned at most thirteen. Her hair was long and unkept. And _white_. Her hair looked like it had been bleached. As she gazed at the unconscious girl, she realised she had found Weapon X.


	4. Part One - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

_"That's what you get from clubbing it, you can't go home and go to bed; because it hasn't worn off yet, and now it's morning. There's only one place we can go. It's round the corner in Soho."_

Pulp, _Bar Italia_

* * *

Jean had tried waking the girl, at first speaking to her and, when that failed, taking her arm and roughly shaking it, her hands clasped around the plastic that covered her. She decided not to explore the girl's mind. Normally, a sleeping mind was the easiest to slip into, a matter of simply sliding into another person's jacket, but she hardly dared to risk it while she had no real idea what sort of tranquiliser had been used to put the girl in her current state. She recalled a rave she went to when she was younger, only shortly after she had crossed paths with the Professor and Tutor. After entering the refurbished apartment block it was taking place in, Jean had immediately lost the group of friends she had arrived with and, not wanting to hang around where any random creep could start leering at her in her (admittedly) low cut dress, she had gone out into what had once been the garden, but was now styled as the smoking area. While there, she noticed a man lying across one of the outside tables, his mouth forming unspoken words as the rain knocked on his forehead. Out of perverse curiosity, Jean had slipped herself into a man's mind, only to end up being carried home by her friends. Undoubtedly, he had likely been high as a kite.

Still, she found herself concerned for the girl that laid in front of her. She had crouched down in front of her, trying to discern her condition. She really must only be a teenager. Jean looked over her shoulder at the door she had come through minutes before, smoke slowly making its way through from the ruined room beyond, leaving her wondering just how bad the fire that idiot of a colleague had set. In her mind, Jean could clearly imagine the building collapsing, burying both herself and this girl with it. And then there were the other equally possible threats out there right now; the Professor and Strawberry Fields must've predicated that they would make a move, undoubtedly having been made aware that they had snatched away the Russian. It was very likely, in Jean's mind anyway, that the two of them had stepped into a trap. If they, at Strawberry Fields, had played their cards right, they might be walking home with both two well-known mutant "terrorists" (the fact that she was regarded as a security threat gave Jean little pleasure, truth be told) and this so-called Weapon X. _Weapon X_. Could this girl really be what the Russians Military was so desperate to hide? What the Americans had risked (and lost, Jean gravely noted) lives to obtain? What the British Secret Service had sent their own agents after? Jean had to get her out of there. The building was on fire and possibly collapsing; she could wait for the deliverymen to arrive. She slowly reached out her hand to the young girls face.

"I wouldn't do that, Jean."

* * *

"Oh Christ, Oh Christ." Robert Drake, better known as Bobby to his friends had watched as his partner was gunned down as she entered the threshold of the apartment building. Had watched as the four story erupted into flames. In short, he had watched as the mission collapsed in on itself, with undoubtedly many careers with it. He had jumped behind the bonnet of the van after Monroe was gunned down and there he had remained for the last five minutes, handgun clasped in his hands and his back against the hood of the vehicle. "Hitchcock? God-fucking-damn it, Hitchock! he shouted into his microphone. "What the hell is your status? It's all going to shit down here, Jesus fucking Christ!" The sound of static in his earpiece, then a voice.

"Iceman, it's me. Are you reading me?" asked a deep voice over the communication equipment.

"I failed English but yes, of course I fucking read you! What's going on?!" His heart was racing. With Monroe down, he was alone. Hitchcock was nowhere close-by to help, and he was alone. He was alone on that Russian street, with the mission collapsing before his very eyes.

"I cannot really say for sure, Iceman. The explosion must've killed the little one I had asked to follow the Russian men." Little one? Oh for fucksake, thought Drake.

"I really can't give two shits about one of your 'little ones' right now, idiot! What the hell am I supposed to do? Monroe's down and I've got no clue what the hell is going on inside!"

"Weather woman is down? That is very sad. Is she dead?" asked the completely monotone voice.

"I've no idea, idiot. I can't even cross the street right now. I have no fucking idea who shot her and where!"

"Please be calm, young iceberg. I will ask my friends to find the information you say is needed."

* * *

The man stumbled against the wall, after frantically twisting his way down the corridor, screaming all the while. Not that Allerdyce could blame him, being engulfed in flames has probably ruined the poor blokes day. He watched as the man writhed against the wall, it's patterned wallpaper burning in long stripes as he slid down against it. The man finally fell silent, his smoking husk slowly bending forwards, until his scorched head fell forward and onto the floor.

He had come across the man, who was reloading his pistol, as he made his way down the first floor hallway and, deciding that he couldn't be bothered to risk the diplomatic route, flicked on his lighter and, putting his full force behind it, sent a wave of flames down the corridor at him. Fortunately, he didn't have to care about property damage today. He began walking down the corridor, the walls burning in sporadic places. Trusting Jean with securing the so-called Weapon X for the Colonel's arrival, he decided to check out the lower floors, making sure they had cleared the complex of any remaining Russians. Their car waited outside, but that means of escape would be rendered useless if there was still some Russian sharpshooter waiting for them outside. He reached the stairwell to the lobby and paused, listening for any sound from the floor below. _Surely this mission isn't going to end on such a dull note? _He flipped the top of his lighter and ran his spare hand through his blonde hair. _Jesus, that'd be such an anti-climax_.

* * *

"So, it's true then Colonel. This girl is the Russian's _Weapon X_?" Before Jean stood a heavy built man in a pale green suit, rendered tight by his physique; a physique rendered even more impressive by his apparent agedness. The man, who stood by the doorway with his bulging arms drooping down by his sides, could be no less than in his mid-fifties. Jean, to whom had never been made partial to his exact age, would guess that was a liberal guess. Between his imposing build and his oiled back, greying black hair, his true age was masked but if she had to guess, she'd expect perhaps sixty-three. Either way, the Colonel's image was a bizarre one, made even more absurd when he opened his mouth and deep Russian accent spilled out.

"That would be correct Miss Jean. She's the ill-gotten result of an experiment designed to eradicate the mutant gene." He didn't turn to face her as he spoke, instead facing straight ahead where the white-haired girl rested. "The embodiment of my nation's desire to see us wiped off the face of this Earth, a romantic might say."

"What do you mean, Mr Nikloaievitch? How the hell can this girl be a _weapon_?"

His lowered his head, his lips forming what could almost be called a smile. "I'm sorry young Miss Jean, but I find such a question spectacularly idiotic. Especially coming from a fellow mutant."


	5. Part One - Chapter Five

Chapter Five

_"I'm in a wide open space, its freezing; You'll never get to heaven with a smile on your face for me."_

Mansun_, Wide Open Space_

* * *

"What was the last line you heard from Cherkavi, Scott?"

He stared around at the room around him. Or perhaps it was Xavier's room; they all looked alike anyway. Wood furniture against a backdrop of wooden walls. Sometimes, as he sat at his desk or Xaviar's desk or whoever's desk, he'd almost swear he could smell oak. _Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane_. He wondered; if he flicked his cigarette at the nearest wall, would it catch? Would the wooden panels and the wooden beams burn around them? Would Strawberry Fields just be set alight, to collapse in on itself?

"Scott! Are you listening to me?"

He turned around and studied the face of the man who sat before him, behind an oak desk. Christ, had he always been so old? He had known him well before age had seeped into that visage, flowing through the crevices of wrinkles and laugh lines. Back when he was not Charles Xavier but the Professor, a man who still had that glimmer of smug reassurance and the idea that he could pick up the world and place it in orbit around himself. Maybe that's what had pulled him in, had pulled them _all_ into Xavier's orbit. A smile that seemed to leak some manner of plan for them all. Convincing them that the man behind that grin had some great plan; a future designed with some part for them all to play their separate roles within.

"Yes, Xavier. I'm listening to you," he said, dutifully. _Duty_. He decided there and then that he hated that word.

The old man who may or may not be the Professor but was definitely Charles Xavier sighed. He gripped the sides of his wheelchair and wheeled it around the desk, its motors making a low hum as it moved smoothly across the hardwood floor. He stopped aside Summers, so that their chairs both faced the brown wall behind the desk. He spoke, not turning to him but following his gaze.

"I know Fury has called for a meeting tonight, my own presence has also been requested. And I think that there's still a little space for me to negotiate a leave of absence or – at worst – a demotion of some sort, but I think we need to both consider the worst." _The worst_. What was the worst; finally being allowed to escape this madhouse? Being asked to leave the man who had directed the path of his life since he was a teenager? No, the latter was too much to hope for and he could hardly claim to have no hand in the way things have unravelled. He had been given the same two options as everyone else involved; the Professor or Tutor - or, more aptly in his case, the Professor or Jean.

"And so the Chief of the Security Services wants to make me the scapegoat for this entire mess, right Charles? Despite the fact that I had no hand in the exchange with the Americans. Despite the fact I was only _chosen_ to head this operation in Cherkavi - which is still on-going, I might add. Tell me Xavier, what purpose is all this serving? This "Weapon-X", all this pandering to Yankees – tell me, wasn't this Sentinel Initiative set up to aid the mutant cause? Because from where I'm standing, we've gotten as far away from that initial aim that we can _fucking_ get." He turned around at Xavier and glared. They faced each other for some time, until Summers turned his head away from his mentor. Xavier didn't return his scowl; in fact, there was no malice or anger in his face at all. What Summer's saw in his face was something that made him feel as if a small knive had been driven into his _own_ spine: Care.

"Do you have any smokes on you, Scott?" asked the Professor, after a minute of silence. Summers reached into his pocket and pulled out two Marlboros and handed one to his mentor. He motioned to pass him his lighter, but Xavier pulled out his own. _He doesn't even smoke_, Summers thought to himself. After taking a long drag, Xavier spoke again. "You know, I don't think this is even a smoking-room," he joked, as he turned his shoulders around and looked nervously behind them, feigning worry over being caught. Summers couldn't stop himself from breathing a short, tired laugh. They finished their cigarettes without saying another word to each other, yet it was far from an uncomfortable silence. It was the kind of silence two friends might share when there's no need for anything to be said, in which words unsaid meant far more than anything that could possibly be voiced. Perhaps, in fact, it would be more apt to compare it to the sort of silence that a father and son may share; perhaps.

"The least I could do right now is to give you time to sort out the debris from this disaster, Patrick. I believe I have just the woman who could be the most use to you right now. No, not that silver tongued _femme fatale_ we brought in earlier this year. It's the young lady who was present with us in our conference call yesterday, a Miss Moira MacTaggert. I believe she'll be a massive asset to us in the days to come."

"Noted, Professor. And thank you," said Summers, as he pulled himself out of his chair and made his way to the door. As he opened the door, Xavier called to him.

"If this goes badly, please don't hold it against Nicholas, Scott. Fury's caught between a rock and a hard place yet he's still fighting to keep this department alive. You know how many people in both the SIS and the government would love to find any excuse to declare our initiative a failure. Fury's doing everything he can to make sure they don't win, remember that."

On that note, Summers closed the door behind him.

* * *

Behind the apartments, Jean held the backdoor of the van open. Slowly, the metal colossus before her placed the plastic wrapped girl in the back of it, before turning to Jean. "Where's Allerdyce?" _A good question_, she thought. She hadn't seen him since he had left her in that charred and burning room, when he decided to do a quick sweep of the lower floors. She had tried to contact him mentally, but either he wasn't deliberately ignoring her requests for a status update or he wasn't getting them, which was a very bad sign.

She leant against the side of the car and clutched her head with both hands. _John, where the hell are you? _Her fingers wrestled through her hair, her pixie cut rendered a mess. Normally, she could just contact a mind she knew as well as John's in seconds; she couldn't explain why, but she just seemed to always know exactly where to send her thoughts if in close proximity to him or Kurt. She closed her eyes and focused her mind even harder. Maybe it was simply due to the amount of time she had spent in their company. Already she could feel the migraine setting in. "I can't… I can't quite…"

"Leave him then. We have other priorities to worry about," interrupted the Colonel. She opened her eyes and looked at the Russian, shocked by what he had just said. His skin was still in metal form, its surface reflecting the orange glow from the fires above, even though he had already set the girl down in the back of the van. "Jean, we need to secure both our assists here. Both Weapon X and Xavier's sentinel here. We can't let that blond pretty boy set us back."

"With all respect Colonel, I don't give one. I'm not leaving a friend behind here." _And on that note, I really need to get out more if I count John Allerdyce as a friend_. "You can take the girl back to Tutor, I'll find John."

* * *

He collapsed to his knees. He couldn't keep it up. The ice, his _armour_, melted from his skin. Steam rose the moment he tried to ice-up again. It mixed with the smoke in the air and filled his lungs. He clasped his head in his hands and tried to focus. It was too hot. Too much smoke. Too, too… It was too hot. He tried to focus. He desperately tried to focus in that heat. He had to get out. It couldn't end here, right? Not like this. He was Robert Drake (he was Bobby to his friends) and he was ice. He was the Iceman. He was meant to be something more. Something _supreme_. He was supposed to be some sort of superhero.

"You know, I think the universe or something's at work here. Like, some form of higher power. A man of fire and a man of ice? It's like poetry, don't you think?"

He's still here. The man with the blonde hair and the golden lighter and the fire, oh god the heat it's killing me and I can't, _I CAN'T i CANNOT_

"You alrighty there, ice-ice baby?"

The heat. the HEAT. He gripped his throat. Around him, a ring of fire. It spread around the two of them, melting the very asphalt of the street. Where the walls of flames that circled them settled, the black melted and bubbled and he knew he was melting. He knew he was _melting._

"Should I turn it down a bit now?" said the voice, now even toned and serious. "I'm being serious here, I'd rather we faced each other on equal standing. I mean, that's how elements are. Fire, ice, water and everything in-between. _Equal."_ _He wants me to trust him. He's the devil and I'm going to melt in this hellfire and he wants me to trust him all the while._ He coughed up again, no longer knowing if what came up was water, vomit or something worse. Perhaps it didn't matter; all possibilities pointed to one conclusion – he was _fucked_. He looked up again and, through the water that poured out of his eyes, tried to glance a final look at the man.

* * *

John Allerdyce often wondered if he was affected by some degree of romanticism, the kind that students of Literature often find themselves possessed by. Perhaps it was hugely owed to fiction's obsessive fixation that all things are connected, be it thematically or otherwise. So often in fiction, be it pulp film, novel of supposed great merit or sitcom, there's an obsession that everything has some line of fate running through it, connecting the beginning to an end; a character's actions to a conclusion. Irony and metaphor, he concluded, was the basis for all fiction, knowingly or unknowingly. Due to this, he wondered if he placed far too much significance in this current encounter. A man who wielded flames coming across a man who wielded ice. Of course, the juxtaposition of the two elements was obvious, but Allerdyce wondered if there was actually any meaning at all. Perhaps that was the distinction that needed to be made between reality and fiction; fiction is shaped by a clear creator, who installs each event within with clear meaning. Reality, as far as Allerdyce was concerned, hadn't yet been proven likewise.

Still, John Allerdyce couldn't help but feel a nudging sense of disappointment for the scene before him. When he saw the man dragging some sort of heavy, stiff cargo from the front of the complex, he had naturally tried to burn him alive. Yet the man had fought back and caught the burst of flames he had sent forth with an eruption of ice from the palm of his hand. Momentarily stunned, Allerdyce had allowed him to progress with whatever his cargo was to the centre of the street, before catching up and surrounding both of them in a circle of flames (the burning complex provided him with enough fire to borrow for that). Yet the man who controlled ice quickly succumbed in their duel and Allerdyce found himself wanting for that typical duel of fates so often found in fiction; a fight between titans of nature. But now the man before him (mutant, there was no denying it, as much as Allerdyce wanted to think of their encounter as so much more) was clearly beaten and he was left at a loss for what to do next. The Russian's obviously didn't employ mutants into their service, at least publically, so the correct guess would be that he was a Sentinel agent. And despite his little group's problems with that little government-employed agency, it hardly made him some manner of absolute enemy. And, although Allerdyce recognised and often thought on his willingness to kill (or at least inflict grievous bodily harm), he hardly thought of himself as possessing a sadistic streak. Perhaps a better description for his capability for killing would be apathy or even sociopathy (at least he'd rather like the latter _not_ to be the case).

Yet there he was, with one of Charles Xavier's lapdogs at his mercy, completely at a loss as to how to proceed. There would be a distinct difference in his mind between the times he had killed before, like the Russian man in the corridor earlier (which could easily be considered combat pragmatism, at least in his mind) to killing this defeated opponent. Was that the distinction between killing and murder? Before he could continue that line of thought, he heard a shout behind him.

"John? John! What the heck do you think you're doing? We need to go, right now!"

_She never swears, does she?_ He found that trait quite endearing, he decided there and then. He turned his back to the collapsed figure behind him, the flaming circle around them collapsing in perfect sync, to face the red-haired girl who was running toward him. She had clearly at some point discarded her coat and he couldn't help himself from admiring her currently active femininity. Truth be told though, he didn't hate himself for it. "I've just brought a Sentinel to his knees, Jean. Go ahead and tell me how productive _your_ last five minutes were."

She stopped beside him and let her upper body collapse, gripping her knees with her hands and breathing rapidly. "Piotr… Nikolaievitch has just driven off with the target and he… he seems pretty niffed-off," she eventually choked out. "I've got some other agent… in the car we came in."

Still facing her, he nodded to the collapsed agent on the street, who had finally finished coughing up and was now laying curled up on the road surface. "So, should we bring him along with us?"

After a few more attempts at regaining her breath, she glanced up at where he had indicated. "I…" she choked out, "I really don't know. Is… is he a mutant?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, does stuff with ice. Don't you think that's funny?"

"Why's… why's that?"

"Because I control fire, right?"

"Oh. I guess." She turned her gaze back and looked up at him. "Just leave him, I guess. We can't just lug two of them back," she paused, glancing at the man by the street again. "We really shouldn't of let him see us though, should've we? Especially considering that you mentioned my name just now. Should we really just let him go?"

He looked across the street, its tarmac melted. A lamp post had utterly collapsed, now missing its upper half and bending away from where his flames had been. He turned his head towards the still burning apartment complex. Smoke was now pouring out of it into the night's sky. "Well," he began, "it's not like it could do any more damage. Let's just get out of here."

She pulled herself upright and motioned to an alley besides the apartment. She smiled. "I parked the car down there earlier. And one agent is good enough, right?"

* * *

Patrick "Scott" Summers lit a cigarette and placed it between his lips. He was sat in his desk chair, his spare arm gripping its polished wooden surface, glancing over the numerous documents that were scattered around his communication system. It had been silent for an hour now. After a drag he lowered the cigarette to the surface of his desk and, holding it there, glanced around at the wooden panelling of his office. Links and connections; three agents in Cherkavi, twenty or so SIS agents in Russia (he had already asked Xavier for the names and current aliases). And Barr – who knew what damage could occur if he let out what had taken place between himself and Monroe in that small Russian café ; a loose end. He lifted the fag to his mouth and cast his gaze to along to another document. On its cover was paper-clipped a photo, featuring three identical men. Another loose end.

A knock on the door. He tapped his cigarette against the side of his ashtray and asked the person on the other side of the door to enter. He could resolve this. A young woman in a black suit entered, her dark brown hair wrapped in a bun. He could still resolve all this. Moira quietly shut the door behind her and made her way to his desk. He signalled with the hand, still holding his fag between his middle and index finger, to the spare chair on the other side of his desk. He made a mental note of what an attractive image the young woman cut and immediately hated himself for it. She slowly slid down into the chair, averting her gaze.

"Miss MacTaggert, thank you for coming on such short notice. The Professor has said a good load of praise about you." He studied her face. Nervous, but that was likely due to being called into his office at short notice in the current climate that gripped the department. And if anyone understood that she had no real reason to be anything other than self-assured, it was him. He had read her file and conceded it was impressive, but then again it must be for such a young _human_ woman to be walking around Strawberry Fields.

"I'd like you to handle something for me. This is strictly confidential, of course."

"Of course, Mr Summers." she replied. _Just call me Scotty_, thought Summers. _Every jackass here does._


	6. Part One - Chapter Six

Chapter Six

"_You see; to someone, somewhere, oh yeah… Alma matters in mind, body and soul, in part and in whole."_

Morrissey_, Alma Matters_

* * *

_Alright, just stay calm. Perfectly calm. You know there's plenty of reasons to NOT be calm right now, but it might be best to ignore those for the moment. Like how I can't see a thing. Or how I can't move a single part of my body right now. Or how I can't use my powers. Or that I may or may not currently be gagged and bound to a chair in some place somewhere in Russia. So, you know, if I ignore all that for now everything should be fine. Man, is this really how I spent the first day of my first holiday ever? Sent to steal from the Russian military, held a gun to someone's head and now might, might have been kidnapped? I guess it could be worse, I could be in Cornwall. Man, I really held a gun up to that lady's head, didn't I? That was pretty badass. I mean, I know it's kinda expected in these kinda situations, but that was some real Die Hard stuff there back. I'm practically Bruce Willis, but significantly less bald. Like, I'm a baldless Bruce Willis. I have to wonder, am I weird for preferring that one in the airport to the one in the hotel? No wait, it wasn't a hotel was it? Oh yeah, it was a Japanese company or something. At least, the guy in-charge was Japanese. I think. Does assuming it was a Japanese company because it was run by a Japanese guy make me a bit racist? Can a mutant be racist? I mean, I guess you get racist black guys and stuff. Wait, are we even a race? Like, I'm Jewish and a mutant now too? Does that make me mix-raced? I need to check that out when I get home. OH SHIT! Ok, stay calm Kitty. Stay calm. Alright, let's try doing what you do again. It doesn't SEEM to be working… Oh crap! What if I'm doing it right now as we speak (well, as I think)? I could be freefalling right now. Well, isn't that a harrowing thought, Kitty? It's that sort of thinking that is really going to help you stay calm and focus on the matter at hand. Man, I bet Miss Munroe never gets into situations like this. She's always so cool and collected and in control and a little bit ethnic but totally in a sexy way (am I gay for totally just thinking that?). Wait, what even happened to those guys? The last time I spoke to them was before that entire mess happened. Munroe, Bobby, Hitchcock… Well, actually screw Bobby, but I really hope the other two are alright. Even if that Hitchcock guy is a tad bit weird. Ok. Focus now. It's now focusing time. So: I held a gun to that lady's head. Now I'm in this current unpredictable predicament. So, like, what even happened to me? Did I get, like, knocked out or something? And why can't I see anything? It's genuinely like I haven't got a body, I can't move a single thing or sense anything. Wait, what if I don't have a body anymore?! Like, for all I know this could just be, like, my psyche floating around. Or maybe I'm having a REALLY bad trip here. Go to Russia, they said. You're the only one who can help us pull this off, they said. I mean, I was doing my GCSEs only less than a year ago!_

"Ground Control to Jean Grey! It's your turn to deal, babycakes."

She jumped. She turned back to face Allerdyce and smiled. "Sorry, was having too much fun listening in or our guest back there." They were sat outside on the balcony with a table between them, a deck of cards and a bottle of vodka placed on it. Inside the hotel room, they had placed the sentinel on the bed, having put her under some sort of makeshift trance. They had been sat playing card games for the last hour, waiting for someone, anyone, to meet them at the hotel. It had been five hours since they had left Cherkavi. They made their way to the hotel chosen beforehand, a hundred or so miles away from that Russian town.

"Still no psychic fax from anyone yet?"

"Nope. I guess we should consider this as our reward for all our hard effort lately," she laughed. "A nice, all-paid-for night in a crappy hotel."

John Allerdyce smiled and reached for the bottle of vodka, pouring himself and Jean another small glass full each. "It's your turn to run down and get more lemonade, Jeany-Baby."

She groaned. The vodka was strong, so they had been going down to the bar downstairs in turns to buy cans of lemonade to mix it with. Jean _despised _coke. She reached into the pocket of her parka and pulled out her pack of cigarettes. The almost completely full ash tray besides her drink spoke volumes about her habit, a thin line of smoke flowing into the cold night's air from a half-snubbed out cigarette. "Ok, how about a bit of bribery? A cigarette for you to get off your _own_ ass?"

He smiled again, his eyes once more closed as his mouth formed it, and shook his head. "You know I don't smoke. Filthy habit."

She sighed and looked down at the ash tray. She carefully put the tip of her index finger onto the still smoking butt and pressed it down into the glass until the seam of smoke stopped. "You know, I can't help but feel a bit annoyed, hearing that from you of all people. Like, you even carry around that lighter for your little bouts of pyro-frenzy. You seriously that against smoking?"

He laughed a short "ha". "To be honest, I've got nothing against people who _do _smoke. In fact, I used to be a thirty-a-day guy. I guess I just don't want to be a walking, talking cliché."

Jean raised her head and looked at the man on the other side of the table. It was then she noted to herself how little she knew about John Allerdyce. They hardly spoke outside of these little field-trips; sure, he'd make conversation with the rest of them, but it was really just him teasing Kurt and mock-flirting with her and any other girl present. She decided there and then as she looked into his eyes, him returning her gaze with a sly smile, that now was the time to get to know her comrade that little bit more.

"When did you pack it up?"

"When I found out I was a mutant," he replied, still not breaking eye contact. Still wearing that smile.

"On the spot?"

"Pretty much."

"There and then?"

"Yep."

"How did you find out you were a mutant?"

She could see that question had hit the spot, as he momentarily glanced towards the door into the hotel room, where the comatosed agent was still lying on the bed. It was a brief glance, not even a second long, and he had of course immediately turned back to face her, but it was enough to tell Jean that she had crossed the threshold. He stayed silent for a few seconds, holding her eye contact once more, before finally speaking.

"Tell you what Jean. You tell me how you found out you were a mutant and I'll tell you my version," he replied, that smile still painted across his face. A smug smile, but still a handsome one, although Jean would rather eat her own foot before admitting that out loud. "You show me yours and I'll show you mine – which, by the way, we should definitely do for real later."

Jean hesitated. She lowered her hand to grasp the glass of vodka and, bringing it to her lips, grimaced at the taste. She swallowed, coughed, and placed the glass back down again.

"I was sixteen."

"You were sixteen."

"I started hearing voices."

"I asked when you found out you were a mutant, not when you realised you were batshit."

"In my case, it was more or less the same." She paused. She looked at the glass of vodka in front of her and, within a heartbeat, whipped it to her mouth and poured the content down her throat. She coughed, and then coughed again. After ten seconds or so, she had gotten her throat to stop seizing. When she opened her eyes, John Allerdyce was no longer sitting back in his chair. He was leaning forwards over the table, a hand dead in the air. He was no longer smiling.

"You alright?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Anyway, I started hearing voices. I tried to keep it to myself but, long story short, they started getting louder than the actual voices around me. I told my parents and, naturally, they locked me up in a madhouse." She spoke quickly, no longer trying to hold Allerdyce's gaze but staring down at the ashtray. "It was in there I started smoking, funnily enough. The staff were pretty 'laxed. The other guys being held there were pretty decent, all things considered. They must've felt sort for me, being a sixteen year old girl in that place with them. Or maybe they wanted to _fuck_ me, I don't know. Someone would get them smuggled in by relatives and pass them around. Obviously not me though, my parents never came to visit me. My sister used to. Used to sneak out of the house and get a train there. I think she'd pretend she was seeing friends for the day or something. She was pretty young back then. Thinking about it now, it's weird that she was allowed in without her parents. But maybe the guards just felt sorry for the little teenage schizo she would ask to see, I don't know. But she stopped visiting me after six months. I think her parents found out. No more visits, no letters. Not that she had been allowed to send me letters beforehand. Luckily, it was only a couple of months later when the Professor and Tutor found me."

"Which one came?"

She glanced up. She had to do a double take; John Allerdyce had his elbows on the table. His hands clasped together. His upper body slumped forwards. His face expressionless. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Professor or Tutor? Which one came to see you?" He spoke quietly, his head slightly dropped, his gaze on her.

"Tutor. It was Tutor." She glanced down to her pack of Marlboro Reds and, after some hesitation, pulled out a cigarette and brought it to her lips. As she lit it, Allerdyce spoke up.

"Did you ever explain things to your parents? Like, tell them you were a mutant all along?"

"No, I didn't. Haven't spoken to them since they had me carried out of their home by the men in white coats. Scott said Charles once wrote to them about it, but apparently he never got a reply."

"Scott?"

"Summers."

"Oh."

They didn't speak for a couple of minutes. She stared out over the railings next to them, her eyes sweeping across the town below. She had no idea where Allerdyce was looking. She closed her mind and checked on the girl in the room behind them; silent. Definitely there though, she must have gone to sleep. After a while, Allerdyce spoke up.

"I was twenty..."

* * *

…second year at university. Studying English Literature and making out with my girlfriend during my spare time. It was pretty easy, in all honesty. First year was a laugh; met my girl on the second week of the following year, asked her out on the third. Hung out with friends most nights, _our_ friends I guess, and occasionally went to lectures. It was a complete breeze. Passed with flying colours. Anyway, it was my second year. I had spent the day writing my piece on Nabokov. _I was the shadow of the waxwing slain_, et cetera et cetera, _window pane_. My friends, _our _friends, had invited us both out that night. Some student bar in town. We'd been there before, it was pretty shitty but oh well, I had spent the day working away so I thought it'd do me some good. Now, my girlfriend – she was the jealous type. Not that I held it against her. Well, after the arguments anyway. And there were a lot of them. All I had to do was speak to another girl and it risked her blowing her fuse. Like, she wouldn't just go crazy there and then, but she wouldn't speak to me until we got back to our dorm. Did I mention she lived in the same dorm as me? That's important later. But anyway, I didn't blame her for it. Her father was a wanker. Cheated on her mother quite a few times and, when it came to light (it always came to light), he'd guilt-trip her. Make her think she was to blame. Not paying him enough attention and the like. Once, when she was thirteen, my girl I mean, the dad just up and left. He was gone for a good few months, shagging some other woman. Anyway, I think it messed her up a bit. Gave her trust issues. And, even though we got into a lot of fights due to it, I didn't hold it against her. She was great. But anyway, there we are in the bar, and her phobia of me being in the slightest sociable to other girls triggered. One of her friends, or a friends of a friend of hers, I can't remember. But anyway, I was talking to her for a bit. Maybe she was being a bit flirty. I honestly can't remember. All that matters is that it triggered off that little pocket of insecure space that my girlfriend had. Like, a match being struck in a room full of gas. Not that I'm trying to make a metaphor out of all this. Anyway, that did it.

Afterwards, we all went back to our dorm. Well, those of us who lived there. Me, my girl and maybe four or five friends. We got into one of those minibuses, the seven seaters, and for the whole thirty minute drive she didn't say a thing. Not a single thing, despite how hard I tried to strike the match. And there I am again, making flame related metaphors. Trust me, I'm not doing it deliberately. Or at least, I don't think I am. But anyway, we get back to the dorm. We went to one on of our rooms, mine or hers. I can't remember. Normally, we stayed togeather for the night. I'd bunk in her room or she would bunk in mine. And, normally, this is where she'd let loose, once the door was closed. And we'd do the same old routine. She'd have her go and I would offer the same old rhetoric. But tonight, that night, that wasn't the case. I went with her to her room – that's right, it was her room - and only then did she speak up. I still remember that moment vividly. Like, I'm not even sure how accurate it is in my memories. Maybe, after so much time I've romanticised it. Made it into some cliché. But I'll tell it as I can remember it. She was on the other side of her door, looking out between the crack. She had already put the bolt across so, from where I was standing, the bronze chain was across her face. She said, "See you in the morning". That was all. I can't remember what expression she wore. How she said it. If she was smiling or crying. All I can remember was those five little words. _See you in the morning_.

Anyway, I was in a foul mood. I knew I had upset her,_ hurt_ her. And what was worse, I hadn't done it intentionally. I mean, I hated those sort of guys who did that. Who aim to keep their girlfriends and the like on their toes, playing on their insecurities, being mean to keep them keen or whatever that shitty phrase is. But I suppose that was what made it all feel so worse. She was upset, and I hadn't meant to cause it. I remember back then how hard I tried, how _hard_ I tried not to upset her. To make her feel safe, to make her feel like she had nothing to worry about from me. That she could fall in my arms and I would hold and _nothing_ would ever threaten that. But life isn't like that. I suppose that's the difference between reality and fiction; in the real world, good intentions and determination can't cure people. And, at that time, I couldn't find a way to make her feel safe.

So there I was, having taken my girlfriend to her room, when I ran into Mark. Mark was a good friend of the two of us, having started university in the same dorm at the same time as us. His girlfriend lived on the same floor as mine, so that only helped our friendship. Anyway, I ran into him and he invited me out onto his balcony for a drink. Now, there was an almost recurring joke about our dorm rooms. Each one had its own unique feature, which set it out against the others. For example, my girlfriend's room had a wardrobe that had been made into a wall. While everyone else had to put away their clothes into a wooden wardrobe, she had that little bit more space. Anyway, you can see where I'm going with this – the unique feature of Mark's room was his balcony. Now, Mark clearly knew that something was going on. Spend enough time in another couple's company and you start knowing all their signs. But anyway, he invites me out for a drink on his balcony. He had a bottle of Glenlivet or something of the like, of all things; he didn't even drink whiskey. But there we were, at 2AM in the morning, drinking whiskey and talking for the next two hours or so. About me and her. About him and his. I can't tell you really what we talked about, being in the state I was in at the time, but I can tell you that Mark was probably my closest friend. So, after hanging out for what must've been two hours, I said goodnight and made my way to my room. I made my way back to my bed, severely drunk at this point, before noticing the phone that rested on my bedside table. I suddenly had this image of my girlfriend waking up tomorrow, her lecture in the early morning and going to it in a bad mood. I knew at this point I had crossed my alcohol threshold and that, despite my best efforts, there was no way I could wake up the next morning and reassure her before she went that everything was still cool between us. That everything was fine. So I picked up the phone and dialled her room number. Of course, it went to her message machine, but I expected as much. It had been a couple of hours since I walked her to her room, so of course she was already asleep. So I left a message. I apologised if I had upset her. I said I didn't mean to. I told her I love her. I hadn't said that to her yet. At least, not to her face. After I put the phone down, I thought it was such a lousy way to say it, over a phone message. But I decided there and then, after I had put the phone down, that I'd greet her outside her lecture hall, some flowers at hand, and repeat that fact. That I loved her. After deciding that, I crawled into bed.

They said it was the radiators. They couldn't be sure what exactly had triggered it, but it was the radiators that had cause the fire. According to the report that the university officials had written, each one had gone of simultaneously in each room. Well, all but one room. My room's uniqueness was that it didn't have a radiator. They used to keep them on during the summer. Whoever was in charge of heating at the university, I mean. So my room's benefit, in the eyes of everyone in the dorm, was that my room was the coolest during the summer. So when I woke up that night, all I felt was slightly warm. I threw the blanket off me and tried to fall asleep again. My head was pounding, probably due to the drink. For five minutes, I just lied still, going in and out of consciousness in that final step to slumber. That's when I heard it. The screaming, I mean. And, as I listened to it, I lifted a hand to my face and noticed how badly I was sweating.

Now, it's not like I hadn't noticed some tell-a-tale signs during those last few weeks, Jean. I had observed a few things out of normal, but I was in delusion I guess. It was just absurd. The flame of my lighter suddenly going crazy after my hand had swooped across it? A fireplace suddenly erupting as I walked past? Of course, any man in that situation would wonder if they caused it. At most, an idle thought about it. But of course, I quickly forgot about all those tiny, insignificant instances. This was before mutants had entered the daily news. But anyway, back to the story you asked for. I got out of bed and opened the door. The moment I did so, I could feel the heat. It was only as I stepped outside that I noticed the flames. I don't really see the need of going into what happened after that, so I'll cut to forty minutes later. Me, standing outside the dorm complex, watching the firefighters hose down the blaze. Ten charcoaled bodies, placed and hidden under rugs, in front of me. Mark. His girlfriend. Stephen.

My girlfriend.

I had made my way to each of their rooms, but in each case I was obviously too late. And as I was running about, utterly hysterical and desperate, there was this one thing I noticed; that as I approached them, the flames crept back. Like an army letting its king walk through the ranks. After that, it's all a blur. I stayed with a few friends a couple of blocks down, but I can't really say I remember that week or so. The next _clear_ memory I have after it all happened was going back into that bar, the bar we had all been in that night. I had left my bed at my friend's, not really able to nod off, and got a cab there. Not really sure why, maybe I expected to get some closure. Anyway, when I got there I ordered a drink at the bar. Or two. Maybe five, I can't remember. It was then I noticed a bunch of people, gathered around the table by the back of the bar. I knew them, some idiots who had lived near our dorm. They were heckling this band that was on, I can't remember their name and, truth be told, they were pretty shit. Some punk girl and her friends, all open muties. Like, they thought they were revolutionary or something. But anyway, they all left, the band and the group of cronies, and I was one of the last people there, drinking. I must've left at, what, 4am or something? Anyway, I was waiting outside for a cab when I heard a noise. Someone was crying down an alleyway. I went over to have a look and it was that girl from the band, with another bloke who I think was the drummer. I _think_. Anyway, they were both bruised and laying on the floor, her slumped against the wall and the guy just lying there. Blood spilling out his head. I never did check if he survived or not. Well, I asked the girl who did it and, of course, she told me it was that table of blokes from my university. I sort of left then, leaving her alone. I know it sounds harsh, but that's what I did. I got my cab and went to their dorm. They were all smoking outside it, five of them or so, and they started getting rowdy the moment I walked towards them. _What the fuck are you looking at_ and the like. But the thing is, I wasn't looking at them. One of them was just drunkenly playing with his lighter, keeping the gas running. I was just staring at that flame and remembering that night, the one the week before. How the flames kept breaking apart to let me past. And I imagined it coming alive and just eating those guys. Like a dragon. And of course, suddenly they were flaying around on the floor, engulfed in flames. I went to my dorm, got a couple hours of sleep and, naturally, fled the country. It was two months later Tutor approached me about joining your little band of merry men. I was in Paris at the time. They have some good larger over there."

* * *

He finished his story and poured himself another drink. He shook the vodka bottle dry into his glass and took a small sip. Jean sat there, staring at him, unaware that she was even still staring. An unlit cigarette dangled from in-between her lips.

"Now, I know you and the elf think I'm some sort of psychopath. I don't have to be some sort of mind-reader to know that. Maybe that's the case, but I certainly hope not," he said, smiling. "I know you guys are different. I know Javis Cocker was crying his eyes out over that guy he dropped from the sky yesterday. And you, Jean? I bet you remember all their faces. How many so far? Five? Maybe six? All I know, little Miss Grey, is that those Russian guys I killed today? That American yesterday? All the ones before? They don't mean anything. Not at the moment, not as I think about them here, right at this very moment. They don't mean a _thing_ to me. The fact that they might, _might_, have been decent people. The fact that they all probably had families back home. Nothing. And I think your little revolution needs people like me. People who don't wrack their brains over every little bit of spilt milk. I mean, I lost count after twenty. I'm pretty sure that number technically makes me a serial killer. I don't really know if I buy into your group and all its little principles, but I do know that one fact - You guys _need_ me. Because all I need to think about, in that moment where I make the decision to take someone out or not, are those ten black bodies I dragged out from my dorm." Jean looked away, over the top of the rooftops again. When she looked back, John Allerdyce's eyes were locked onto hers.

"Your lighter not working?" He smiled. That same smile. "Here, borrow _mine_."


	7. Part Two - A Timeline of Recent Events

X-Men: The Beautiful Ones 

1996, 

16/10: THE KENSIGNTON HOTEL destroyed by anti-registration mutant terrorists. The British media holds a rogue mutant cell, known to house former KGB turncoat ERIC LEHNSHERR , as responsible. In response to the abduction of a Russian VIP, the head of the British Secret Services arranges dialogue between the SENTINAL INITIATIVE, headed by former British serviceman CHARLES XAVIER, and the Russian Army in an attempt to retrieve the hostage and to secure the subject of his information; the Russian's WXP. 

21/10: A mission to intercept the terrorist cell goes astray, leading to the injury of two agents and the abduction of a third (CODENAME: SHADOWCAT). WXP is lost to the terrorists. The Russian government purges the Russian army's leadership for their involvement in the project, in addition to their arrangements with MI6. The whereabouts of the missing British agent is still unknown, he/she is presumed dead. 

25/10: Russia toughens its anti-mutants policies. Detainment camps are designed for the mutant population awaiting government screening, compared by the international press to the old system of gulags. 

31/10: A young mutant is stabbed to death in broad daylight in Oxford Street. The British media reports a rise in extreme anti-mutant sentiments, encouraged by popular right-wing journalists such as Will Stryker. 

1/11: A 9PM curfew is temporarily enforced for the mutant population of several major London districts. Media reports on anti-mutant immigration policies being discussed at Westminster. 

2/11: The Russian government revokes the citizenship of mutant-citizens. CPT. PATRICK SUMMERS, known mutant sympathiser, is removed from the SENTINAL INITIATIVE. 

"I wanna live,

Breathe,

I wanna be part of the human race..."


	8. Part Two - Chapter One

Chapter One

"When I look at you; oh, I don't know what's real. Once in a while, and it makes me laugh."

My Bloody Valentine, _When You Sleep_

* * *

There's a pub just opposite London Victoria Station, and a pretty decent pub at that. Well, perhaps that sort of circumstantial type of "decent", where something itself is not objectively all that great, but isn't there a time and place for everything? Due to being located next to one of London busiest stations, with hundreds of communist leaving it by the half hour from the platforms or underground, perhaps that's the sole reason the place is of decent standards, and why you'll consistently find your pint far better than any of the nearest bars over – the sheer convenience of it. Now, the time? Let's go with eleven in the evening, as he hasn't checked his watch in nearly an hour of drinking. Now, this isn't just a regular eleven in the evening but, instead an eleven in the evening in one of the most metropolitan, filthy with people constantly on walking back and forth across the road and the smell of tobacco and newspapers and the homeless in the air metropolitan areas in the world. The trams are due to stop running in around an hour, if we are to go with eleven in the evening. The station proper itself is crowded by flocks of commuters. Imagine any major train station in the world in this day and age, but ever so significantly less noisy, for we're talking about that last decade, the final era that stood before falling to the waves of perverse, all inclusive mobile phone calls.

A man walks out of the pub just opposite London Victoria Station and, turning his head to look across the street, lights a cigarette.

To friends and acquaintances, this man is Worth, headchef of a small pub in South Kensington which, chance would have it, is but a mere ten minute walk from the Kensington Hotel and no, he was not involved. To former colleagues, he was less-simply, and a bit more of a mouthful, Lance Corporal Worth. Now, I could use this chance to explain what about this particular man, as he makes his way across that road that separates London from London Victoria, is worth me signalling him out from the numerous characters going about their lives on that street as I type, but for now let's simply follow him. He makes his way across the road and then stop at the island in the centre, waiting for the pedestrian light to turn in his favour. There's a couple of others sharing the island with him, a thirty-something man in a business suit, starting to bald, and a young woman who he can't help but judge as seeming timid, in that typical way you notice and make a mental note of something, to store away later and to draw an entire first impression from, while yet to have even opened your mouth and pointed it at their direction. Yet, our man doesn't speak to her and, perhaps unsurprisingly, never will; she steps out of our tale now, to go about heading home because she had to, just had to, escape from the arguing and shouting, only to fall off the edge of this tale into the white abyss of nothing. Instead, he just continues smoking his cigarette, turning his head away from the other two each time to exhale the smoke, feeling guilty for smoking besides them, in that peculiar way that all smokers always feel. The lights however do not yet turn in his favour, forcing all three to spend even more time in that uncomfortable, lingering moment of individual-unacknowledgement. To avoid feeling compelled to communicate with the other man and woman, he looks up into the night's sky. Of course, there are no visible stars above the miasma of shit that floats above the capital.

On the way into the station, he picks a newspaper up from a stand and pays for it. Although he could easily find a deserted paper once he's sat down on the tram, he decides not to risk it or a journey's length of time without anything to pool his attention into. While he could easily find a copy of the Mail or even the News of the World, he decides that he'll be safe and purchase his copy of the Guardian now, for it is one of those papers that prove a little rarer on public transport. At least this way, he'll have enough substantial reading material to avoid ruining his mood by being left with only mutant hysteria and Stephan Lawrence to read, with him of course between the middle. Three minutes later, he stands on the underground platform as his tram swoops in, breaking apart the damp, warm air. He steps in and notices how deserted the carriage is. In fact, the only seat currently taken is held by an elderly white lady, a peculiar sight to see by itself at this time on the underground. She glances at him as he sits down a few seats from directly opposite her. As he begins to open his paper, he notices her recurring glances. Of course, he doesn't question why. Alone on a tram, at a little bit past around a eleven in the evening, with only a well-built, thirty-one year old black male for company, one could almost not blame her for being nervous. Worth couldn't help but hope that seeing him open a copy of the Guardian would absolve her fears or, at least, confound her enough to distract here from the sheer _terror_ of it, for whose ever heard of a black liberal?

The journey is uneventful until that the elderly woman speaks up, addressing him as "dear" and politely asking his destination. He explained he was going back home to South Kensington and they engaged in maybe twenty entire seconds worth of small talk, devoted to the "pleasantness" of that area. A silence pursued this short outburst of conversation, as they left the final station before his stop. He continued reading his newspaper, hoping that the woman would not make another misguided attempt at conversation. Unfortunately, this was not the case for, with maybe forty seconds left till his commune was complete, the woman tried once more to strike a conversation, this time the subject being the "incident" that took place at the Kensington Hotel "all those weeks back", and the "mess those muties" made of the place. Worth cringed as she uttered the word. As he looked up at the woman from his paper for a final time, the train pulling into his station, he couldn't help but remember Rwanda. As soon as thedoors to the underground platform opened, Worth left the old woman without a word.

* * *

"Brains, take a look at this."

He jumped, his glasses nearly falling off as he spun around on his desk chair. In front of him, in that dimly lit room, located in practically the sewers of Strawberry Fields, stood a woman that no man would dare call unattractive. Long, raven black hair and, with a hand on her hip, fingers spread ever so deliberately across her tight black miniskirt, there stood before him a woman who know how to posture herself.

"Oh great Miranda," said the bespeckled man in the chair. Adam Baldwin was, unfortunate, true to his name. The only thing that graced his head were the glasses he had been forced to wear since he was sixteen. Skinny, in clothes that made him look like the victim of a very violent and sudden diet; even for a black man, he looked pale. "If this is another fucking workload you're about to give me just, just great."

She smiled. Fuck, how he hated how attractive that smile was. She was stunning, and he hated that he had to admit it, because the worst part of his job was that he technically, _technically_ like a tomato is _technically_ a fruit (unless he was remembering that wrong), answered to her. Natasha Nettle, and if she was Russian she did a fucking fantastic job hiding it.

"Here, take a look at this," said Nettle, handing him a small envelope with "confidentiality" marked all over it, clear as day. Although he would never admit it, Baldwin (who, indeed, was bald) still practically shat himself every time he was presented with such a document.

"Oh fuck me if this," he started, "Is this the Professor? Tell him he that's I'm already busy with that, that channel with that Russian guy, erm Marko, you know the one, the one he put me in contact with and-"

"Just read it, you arse. This is above the Professor".

Above the Professor? The head of Strawberry Field? A stillness passed over him, as he looked at that confidential document now grasped between his hands. "Stop starring and read it," repeated Nettle, "we need to get the word out to Pointdexter as soon as possible." That same smile grew across her face, contorting what once could have been mistake for the visage of an angel into something ugly, the kind of smile that only invites the sinister into bed. He complied and, as he glanced through the words within, a cold shiver ran down his spine, as if an ice cold hand had stroked against his face, running its fingers against the edges of his mouth.

After a pause, he spoke.

"Who the fuck is Emma Frost?"

He looked up and was greeted by that smile. That half glorious, half deranged smile.

"I guess we'll be calling her the boss soon," she answered.

* * *

He heard the door slam.

The doctor had said that, although he was by no means paralyzed, he should avoid moving as much as possible. Although there was no serious injury to his actual body, his entire system had been knocked off balance. He had lost a significant portion of his water-mass, although of course the medical professionals Xavier had called in were at a loss for how. With no real external signs of damage, the doctors were initially stunned by how his anatomy had taken such a massive hit. Of course, they were used to dealing with regular human physiology.

"Whose there? Visiting hours are over now, aren't they?"

He couldn't move to see who it was. His body was being held in placed by plasticine like walls, holding his body in an optimal position to encourage the reproduction of lost fluids. But even if he could move, he wouldn't be able to see the figure who had walked into his room. It was pitch-black inside and out; even the skyscrapers that surrounded the hospital complex were asleep, the orange glow of the capital's heart, out.

"Hello? Can you answer-fucking-_me_?"

"Relax Drake. It's just me."

He knew the voice well. Patrick, so-called Scott, Summers. Chief of Strawberry Fields. Reigning captain of the Sentinel Initiative. "Jesus _fuck_, Scotty. Next time, less creeping into my room in the middle of the night, ok?" Of course, it was _him_. He knew he must be the biggest joke back at the Fields right now. Bobby Drake, the man who froze on the spot. Well, screw them all. They weren't

"The doctors say you're recovering well," said the voice. "That's good."

"Yeah, only a week or so till I'm ready for active duty, they're saying I guess that-"

"Too bad about Munroe, though."

Something inside Bobby froze. It wasn't his fault. How could anyone claim it was _his_ fault? Of course he had wanted to help her sooner. And isn't that what he did in the end, when he ran into that burning building? How could anyone expect more from him? "Listen Scotty, I-"

"Shut the fuck up, Drake."

He felt a hand grip his throat.

"What happened to the Pryde girl?" asked Summers, in a voice that contained the wraith of an Greek chorus. "What happened to Agent Shadowcat?"

* * *

As he twisted his key in the lock of his apartment door, his grim apartment door which then opened to even grimer, dirtier room, Worth thought back to Rwanda. He remembered the dozens of people who ran away from him, who winced, at the sight of a black soldier in armed garb. Not that there was much soldiering going on, as opposed to watching. Watching the cars slowly go through checkpoint after checkpoint. The sight of empty villages and the piles of emptied beds stacked, for some reason, always in the middle of them. A match and washing of petrol later, he remember the constant bonfires. He survived all that. Not physically, but a mental survival, the kind all the TV shows were obsessed with nowadays. Obsessed with showing just how easily, apparently, man and woman can lose themselves to the clutter of bullshit that littered the mental plane. Living with Rwanda had always been worryingly easy for him. He never had the dreams, the nightmares that his comrades suffered from. Fuck it, living the rest of his life as a mutant? He suspected he'd survive that too. But who's to say that was even the case? Why, in this day and age, is the abnormal sought after and attacked until it, itself, is normalised? As he took off his shirt and undid the binds on his back, releasing a sharp growl as pain spread through his upper body his wings, white as snow, fall loose, Warren Worth wondered if perhaps he might just be a bonafide angel.


	9. Part Two - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

"If we get through this alive, I'll meet you next week, same place, same time."

Pulp_, Bar Italia_

* * *

He took a final look at the butt of his cigarette, before throwing it to the ground and trampling it with his foot. The sound of traffic echoed through the halls of the interior carpark, bouncing back and forth off the grey walls which were illuminated in the darkness by the palest of sporadic orange lights. A cold wind blew from the open sections of the walls, and he stretched his arms and gripped the metal railing and, looking out, followed the skylines that marked the night's sky.

"Katherine Pryde, was it?" asked the man, who had met Miranda Nettle under the alias of Pointdexter. He wore a smart, well-fitted suit under his grey coat, his short blonde hair well groomed; a gentleman, if only in appearance No more than thirty years old, at most. He looked to his right where Miranda stood, her face half visible in the orange glow and, releasing his grip of the railing, extended out his right hand to her.

"Indeed, although perhaps you might know her moniker, 'Shadowcat'," replied Miranda, as she handed him the brown envelope once more. He slowly swung his body around, his back now leaning against the cold metal, and removed the content of the envelope with his spare hand.

"Doesn't ring a bell, I'm afraid." He removed two photos contained within and, setting the rest of the document aside on the concert surface behind him, stood up and rooted through his pocket for his lighter. Clutching it in his right hand, he lit in and held it to the photo. It showed a young girl, somewhere between the ages of eighteen to twenty, taken clearly from a distance. From the glass building in the background and the concrete steps she was walking up, he assumed it was taken in central of some metropolis. Behind the photo he held in his hand was another, in which the same girl was placed at the centre, starring into the camera. "An agent, I assume?"

"A rookie, to be more exact," she replied, "One of Xavier's." A mutant? He looked again at the second photo and found himself acknowledging the girl's features; doe-eyed, with striking blue eyes. He noted how he felt the girl displayed an incredibly compelling sense of innocence simply in print form, like some young, virginal fawn. He quite looked forward to meeting her in person.

"Interrogate and remove, huh?" He detested the idea of 'killing' something, with all its ugly connotations. He found that his choice of phrase, to 'remove', far more fitting; for what otherwise does it mean to end someone's life, then to literally remove them from existence? To him, the phrase "to kill someone" did the experience no justice, almost as if it hinted that, by committing the act, you were putting something into the world. No, that wasn't the case; when you end a life, you have merely erased a small, relatively insignificant element of the world; the act itself is hardly dramatic or significant. "May I ask what exactly this girl did to warrant the wraith of Charles Xavier?"

"Oh, this isn't from Xavier," answered the raven haired woman, "The man's practically washed up after his Russian mess. No, Xavier's on the way out. This is from _well_ above Strawberry Fields." The man noted a small hint of glee in her eyes, each one capturing the orange glow of the interior lights. "The girl fucked up, not sure yet the exact nature of said fuck up, but she definitely _fucked up_ big time. Her body never turns up, leaving us to assume she had somehow escaped the explosion which destroyed the buildings or that the resulting roast had been confiscated and hidden in some Russian morgue. Then, two weeks later, we get a sighting of her, that photo you're holding in fact, of her in France. I can't really say much more, considering your current freelance status and all, but we think she's been a bit of a loudmouth."

He turned his gaze down to the photo again. _She is cute_, he thought, _it'd be such a shame if she left this world unfulfilled._ He tucked put the photos back into the envelope. Paris; the plane tickets were inside and were, of course, non-private. Nothing to link him back to Miranda or Strawberry Fields.

"On the subject of my freelance status," he began, earning him a further glance from Miranda, "I would've hoped my last mission would've persuaded your boss, whoever that may be now, to reevaluate myself." He folded the envelope in half and tucked it into his coat pocket. "I'd be far more useful to you people if you just brought me into your organisation."

Miranda smiled. Although certainly an attractive woman herself, there was something very carnal about her. Not in the erotic sense, however; it was as if, at any moment, she could and would leap out of her skin and devour you. He found that he had to conduct himself around her, to an extent he rarely had to go about with his employers, despite her gender. "I meant to say earlier, my superiors were very pleased with how you performed within the boundaries we set you last week. You know, half of Russia thinks Boris Barr has simply packed his bags, left his wife and three children and fled to China with some young, faggot lover." He didn't laugh at that little homophobic comment, but he did listen to that information with some pride. "Now, obviously we've erased all mentions of anyone called Pointdexter from our files after such a hit," she said, then tried to hide a birthing grin. "I guess someone must have gone for an ironic angle with your new one."

* * *

Patrick "Scotty" Summers looked at his empty bottle of (no) gin, then at the photo etched wall, and cursed under his breath. The wall, previously mentioned and now in question, was again etched in small, square photos, which were connected by deranged circuits of pen lines, string and red permanent marker. Some were cut from newspapers, others from files he had managed to smuggle with him after he left Strawberry Fields. After he was fired from Strawberry Fields. _Fuck Robert Drake._ He took a few misplaced, drunken steps forward and pressed his hand against the wall. _Fuck Nick Fury. Fuck Munroe. _He leant forward, until his forehand touched the cold surface of one of the photographs. _Fuck Charles Xavier._

Charles Xavier.

The king of the mutant cause and any poor fucking moron who'd let himself be suckered in by his grand rhetoric and pretty dreams. The man who had raised him as a son, his father's son, and thrown him to the wolves. The man whose dreams, whose ambitions, he had chosen over Jean. _"_Fuck Jean Grey," he uttered then winced, immediately regretting his blasphemy.

Suddenly, a warmth in his eyes. No, on his eye; sunlight? Could it already be morning?

He hadn't finished. He had to keep going. He fucked up. He even admitted it in front of Xavier and Fury and all those fucking old, balding middle-aged _old men_. He was out of the loop, once and for all. No more Strawberry Fields, no more Xavier, no more Fury, (no more Madelyn and/_or_ Jean). He was facing a white abyss, one formed by his own continual series of personal and professional fuck up after fuck up. But he had something left, at least one mistake he could perhaps amend. He looked at the photo in the middle. _Katherine Pryde_, _Kitty to her friends_. He remembered how just six weeks ago, she had playfully begged him to start calling her Kitty. He couldn't, however; one small step towards a mistake he had already made with Jean. But now, he'd find Kitty. Kitty, lost in Russia, on his orders. But despite everything, despite his desire to correct having sent that little eighteen year old _girl_ into a _fucking combat zone_, a small but ever present dark voice whispered to him;

"You don't want to find and save Kitty; you want Kitty to lead you to _her." _

* * *

She thanked the hotel's receptionist and hulled her rucksack over her shoulder. She didn't know how things went in France, how a barely eighteen year old girl could pay for an expensive hotel room with only cash and not be questioned, but she guessed it had something to do with the question the man at the counter had asked; _should we expect another guest in your room soon?_ She assumed, at best, that _they_ assumed she was a young heiress waiting for a responsible adult to arrive. Realistically, perhaps the mistress of some seedy politician. Still, she couldn't complain too much; they had let her rent the room, at the shortest of notice.

She opened the door of her room and, still standing outside, reached for the light. It revealed a typical, five star suite. Typical was at best a guess, having never spent a night in a hotel before. She walked past the kitchen area and dropped her bag on the breakfast bar, before picking up the television remote and sitting at the edge of the bed. She turned the television on and, as she flicked through the channels at a frantic speed, burst into a series of uncontrollable sobs, until the screen was so blurred by her tears that she had to set the remote down and wipe her eyes. Over the Channel, the man who went under the alias of Bullseye picked up a plastic cup of water and looked out of the passenger window into a sea of clouds, lit up by the early morning sunlight.


	10. Part Two - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

_"As they took his soul they stole his pride. And as he faced the sun he cast no shadow."_

Oasis_, Cast No Shadow_

* * *

The morning sun glazed its way lazily across the Thames. The skyscrapers, jealous of their union, reflected the exchange between sun and water. From a window, high inside Vauxhall Cross, Charles Xavier watched the affair. His thoughts followed the river, until trailing back to his conversation with Fury.

_Who is Emma Frost?_ It was as if the name had invaded his regular vocabulary of late. It was first uttered to him at a social gathering, a few weeks back; public speaker, academic, a rising figure in mutology. Xavier humbly credited himself as the creator of the discipline. Such a figure like Frost making such an impact, without his awareness? Unthinkable. He wasn't quite that out of the loop. Not just yet. The Frost woman had now been installed into Strawberry Fields, over his head, by Fury. An invisible presence at that moment, but one still keenly felt. Authority over the Pryde file had been taken out of Miss McTaggert's hands and into hers. Xavier knew very little of the girl herself; Scott had been the one who recruited her, a rare find. The ability to turn intangible? If unchecked, such a power could of led the young girl easily into a life of crime. If Scott could be given any credit over the last year, it was Pryde. Pryde remained his only tangible achievement, as far as Xavier was concerned. The thought that the girl's fate now rested on this stranger's hands disturbed him. Admittedly, Xavier was not one for an "Us versus Them" mentality, but there could be no denying that Emma Frost was an outsider to the organisation and he had to discern her motives, her _agenda_, before it was too late; before any more control slipped away from him.

At the end of their meeting, Fury had given Xavier a selection of newspapers. The Telegraph, the Guardian. The Daily Mail. Charles lifted them from off his lap and glanced through the front-pages again. _Mutant terrorism_. _Mutant hate crimes. _

_The Mutant Agenda._

* * *

Kurt Wagner felt blessed to be back in Paris. Five years ago, when he was sixteen, already seven months homeless, he stole himself into the city in the trunk of a truck. He didn't know the destination until they pulled into the very capital; he walked aimlessly around the streets for a full hour, taking in the fresh air with eager lungs, until he finally saw the very monument that sat on the Champ de Mars. He slept rough that night, before turning his attention the next day to acquiring funds. Always the philanthropist, he only stole from the houses that looked unlikely to cry over some mere pocket change, and proceeded to set himself up in a hotel near the tower. He always paid for his hotel rooms; a matter of principle he could not bring himself to ignore. Of course, the hotel could not challenge the splendour of the one the Pryde girl had chosen for herself. He was not quite that frivolous.

Once he had settled into the city, with enough money, as the English would say, 'to keep the wolves from the door', he looked on to how he would pass his time. He found the answer down the street from the hotel in a library, located next to a bourgeois café. He had seen no need to pay for a library card, all those years ago. After all, why should one pay a library? The principle of free knowledge appealed to Kurt and so each morning, after he had taken breakfast at the café, he stole himself into the library. Day after day, he followed this same routine. At night, The Cure and The Smiths taught him English while, during the day, Dante and Wyatt taught him religion. He thought to visit that library, as he lifted his eyes from the telescope, after he had made contact with Kitty Pryde.

The telescope, which pointed out of his window towards the building opposite, was a simple one; metallic silver, portable. He pushed it aside, its scope fleeing to the right before gently hitting the wall. As much as he wanted to bathe himself in nostalgia at that moment, he forced himself to remember the task at hand. Standing up from his chair, putting his hands into his pocket, he made his way into the kitchen. Pryde had given Jean and the maniac the slip in Russia and, luckily, he managed to catch up to her trail before she had faded away into the Russian blizzard. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. Sometimes, he felt like he had become in the web weaved by two grand spiders. Both himself and Pryde existed on that web, each one having picked their separate spiders. But to Kurt, it didn't make much difference; all involved, regardless of their individual knowledge of the vortex surrounding them, were merely trapped flies. He didn't know the nature of the vortex he existed within, and doubted either did Pryde. A girl her age? She has just been sucked in, just like him; he didn't fully understand the rules of the game being played, not nearly to the extent that Jean did. But in that Parisian room, he felt an infinite amount of sympathy for Kitty Pryde. Although he made out to begrudge being sent out on such short notice, it had been just an act he performed for Jean's and the Tutor's eyes. He felt like he had to help Kitty Pryde, because god knows someone had to.

* * *

To Jean, the large mansion seemed almost schizophrenic; the rooms above ground were entirely rotten, the decay seeping evenly into the bricks of every wall. It stood on a small hill, its eastern side overlooking a small rural village, while the west overlooked the Cornish coast. In times gone by, the length Jean could not estimate, it was clear it was owned and constructed by an extroniraliy wealthy family; its massive greenhouse and plot speaking for that fact. But the mansion had been left abandoned long ago; a crypt to house both absence and decay.

But under the mansion, a lair of silver corridors and rooms exposed that lie. Would expose the lie, were they not built in secret, with the intention of being _kept_ secret.

"And by an equally mysterious, secretive man," Jean thought to herself. When the mansion was handed to Jean and Tutor, little over a year ago, the massive complex of rooms and corridors that burrowed beneath the building had already been finished. How soon before, Jean had not yet discerned. So for what purpose were they built for? Was it for their cause that the foundations of the once majestic building had been disturbed, burrowed into by an unseen army of drills and metal? Regardless, Jean felt that the mansion served as the most ironic of disguises; wearing the mask of degeneration to hide progression. Jean had just come from the underground infirmary. Although they did not possess enough numbers to fill all the rooms that rested below the mansion, they still needed adequate medical supplies. Though, when talking about their collective, Piotr Nikolaievitch would describe it as an "army", Jean preferred to think of it as some manner of brotherhood. Within their ranks, which amounted to some twenty people, they had a doctor, a teacher and even several children. One more child, in fact, now that the Russian girl was here. Barely a handful of them were active participants in the group; herself, Kurt, Allerdyce, Nikolaievitch and, of course, Eric. They once had a sixth, a strange young woman who went by the name Raven, but she was long gone now. Disappeared during a mission, never returned to base. No skin off Jean's back; she was an odd one.

She had been talking to the doctor just five minutes ago. He was a short man, Irish accented, who had been brought into their hemisphere by their mysterious benefactor. His face bore a large, thin scar that made itself known across a forever sealed eyelid. Dour faced, never smiling, he was equally an enigma she had no desire to explore. She often thought, NRA?, but decided that it would be better to pry. The right to secrecy was something everyone in their small haven deserved. And, from what she had unintentionally glanced within him, she didn't _want_ to know. There was a smell about him, his _mind_, and it was one of bricks and fire.

"Yes, she's making a quite a speedy recovery," he had told her, as he leant back in his chair. He had sat behind a desk and, beside them, stood a series of four white beds. The room was filled with hospital equipment which neither matched nor complimented each other. "Poor girl. What, with the injuries I found? I'd hate to even hazard a guess at what those barbarians did with her." That had been the first time Jean had ever heard him speak so personally about _anyone_ brought into his infirmary. "If you want to find her, I believe she's with that Nicholson man right now." He then offered her a curious look. "I heard their quite an item, always with each other."

Nicholson_. Waterboy. _She didn't like that one bit. She had known him long ago, back when they were both young and working under the Professor and Eric. His talent was remarkable, a complete control over water! She remembered feats he would casually achieve; once, while she, Nicholson and Patrick sat eating lunch outside Xavier's country home, he had managed to lift the entire content of a small lake into the air, before making the floating lake collapse into a rain of doves. Then, not to long before both she and Eric left the Professor, he disappeared. It was only three years later she had met the man again, although certainly no longer young. He had aged; his appearance and mannerism warped. When they became reacquainted, less than a year ago, something about the man she had once known had changed, as if something once significant had now decayed within him. Any common ground he shared with the girl they had saved from Russia,? Well, it was a place Jean thought no one should tread.

The sun shone on the ocean's surface. Jean would have to talk to Waterboy about his relationship with the Russian girl. She'd have to make time for it later though; she needed an update from Kurt soon.

* * *

It was noon now. If the seer that lived in his telescope could be believed, Kitty Pryde was still in her hotel room. He watched as she collapsed on the foot of her bed, crying once more. He felt his heart weep a little for her and felt it was only right to allow her the illusion of privacy, if only for now. After cooking himself some food quickly, he pulled the telescope back to the window and picked up a paperback of poems, long overdue from a certain library. There was plenty of time left for Kurt to make contact, so he sat back and enjoyed both the Parisian sunlight and Baudelaire.

* * *

He would have preferred rain, if only to match the demands the day set for him. But perhaps the sun's rays would give Pryde some extra spirit in her final hours; a spirit he wished to personally enjoy, if possible. As his cab pulled in front of a café, that famous french tower entered his view, impaling the sun. The man who went under the alias of Bullseye tipped the driver generously. He opened the vehicle's door, exited onto the cobbled sidewalk and checked his watch; 12:51. He decided it'd be best visit Kitty in a few hours, nearer to four or five o'clock. Who would want to be disturbed so early in the afternoon, when the weather was so delightful?


	11. Part Two - Chapter Four

_Phew! This chapter took quite a bit out of me! As I write these few last lines, I'm just a minute away from doing a final edit - five minutes from uploading - and all I can think? I can't believe I've finished this bit. When I set out planning this story, last summer, I remembered using an old pack of Marvel Top Trumps to mark each character, their links with others, their part in the plot, their eventual destinations etc etc. And all I could think was, quite cynically, that I wouldn't get to this part of the story; despite this scene being one of the main segments of the story, I just couldn't imagine having the drive to get anywhere near to it. I even had these doubts when I was at 10,000 words uploaded; still not even close to the bit I really wanted to take from my brain and put onto page. And here I am now, writing this very sentence, having just finished that word "sentence". It's funny how writing doesn't allow you to stand still; when you try to write about the word you've literally just typed, it's already well in the past, behind another five or so words. _

_Anyway, onto the actual chapter. Get yourself a drink before you start it (it's a long 'un) and maybe, if you can, listen to the song I've quoted first. Now, onto__ the sad fate of Kitty Pryde; eat your heart out, Actaeon._

* * *

Chapter Four

_"Emotional landscapes; They puzzle me. The riddle gets solved, and you push me up to... This state of Emergency."_

Bjork, _Joga_

* * *

The vase, which sat on the breakfast table, had held Kitty's gaze for a while now. From it, Kitty came upon a sense that the hotel room, _this_ sort of hotel room, was one reserved for a more cultured clientele; the vase's elegance spoke for that fact. Fine china; Kitty could not imagine a better use of porcelain. It was placed centered on the breakfast table, in complete isolation. Lacking a keen eye for art, she had spent some time idly trying to discern its imagery. What was clear to her were the figures of a man and girl, the latter naked, standing barefoot in a stream. From the bow in his hands and the arrows on his back, Kitty decided the man must be a hunter, if not some manner of soldier. At the sight of the girl, in her unrobed beauty, the man held his bow low. The hunter had been pacified by beauty, Kitty assumed. She almost hadn't dared to spin the vase around to see the other side, the hidden side, facing the wall. Neither had she particularly wanted to. There was something that struck her as romantic, almost innocent, about the scene on the revealed side. Yet, curiosity won out and so nervously, with gentle hands, Kitty turned the vase. The image that confronted her was bizarre, _atrocious_ and, not quite sure why it had affected her as badly as it did, she hurriedly turned it to its original side. Not allowing herself to be distracted any longer, Kitty turned the television set off. She walked across the room to the bed and, after having sat down, pulled her legs around and laid across the bedding. No, she wouldn't allow any more distractions; no more TV for Kitty. _No more crying either,_ she thought. Self-pity wouldn't get her out of this mess. _But Scotty might_.

She didn't know Summers as well as she would have possibly liked. All the same, however; she quite liked the guy. A bit on the grumpy, I'm-so-cool-and-melancholic side but hey, who was she to judge? Some girl, fresh out of GCSEs, high on living the Bond life; who was she to have judged Scotty Summers? Kat to her friends, with a bottle of alcopop in hand. Kat to her parent; Katherine when she was in the wrong. Something-something, dotted line; all she remebered from English Lit was that tidbit of fancy prose style. But most of the time, sometimes always, Kate; Kate to the strangers, aunts, uncles and teachers who never took the time to ask what she preferred. Kate, of course, to Charles Xavier.

But Scotty?

Scotty "Gloom and Doom, careful with that Broom" Summers? He asked. He didn't seem to care too much, and never did call her Kitty, but at least he asked. _Kat or Kate? _Kitty remembered her own answer;_ Kitty to my friends._ It was not the first time the name had formed on her lips, but it was certainly the first time she allowed the name to venture into the real world. So, from that day on, she was Kitty Pryde; the young girl selected, straight out of GCSEs, to join MI5. Oh, how proud of herself she was. Her parents didn't like it all that much, so all the more proud of herself. Now, in that room, Kitty's heart collapsed at the thought. How she had deluded herself that she had shown any merit, any natural ability, that warranted such an achievement? At the time she was simply an avegare (or below) sixteen year old girl, with only eight Cs and a D to her name. Only now had she truly woken to the truth of it all; she hadn't been scouted due to any natural ability, but purely due to an _un_natural one.

When it came to making contact with the Fields, her first thought had been Charles Xavier. Yet who was he, besides some old man in a wheelchair who she had met only a dozen or so times. Despite what she may have once told herself, his interest was in her little party trick, not herself. But Scotty? Christ, he had thrown her a fucking birthday party. Of course, he had tried to avoid admitting it, but Munroe spilled all. With Wakefield's very own Kitty Pryde all alone, in the steel city of London, Scott Summers had asked Munroe to throw her a birthday party. Try as he might, Kitty thought, Xavier didn't care about the little people. Try as he might, Scotty _did_.

Two weeks ago, as she looked up at the night sky, she realised that it might as well be her ransom note; none of the stars made sense. Of course, when her eyes finally opened, she had hardly expected to be in _Ukraine_. It was there that her captors had finally made themselves known to her - Alice Lynch and Edward Blaze. Of course, it didn't take her long to realise their true identities; Jean Grey and John Allerdyce . She had been given their profiles long ago and, for several months, Scott had grilled her on what to do if she encountered them. For the pyromaniac, it was simple: phase, cut the distance, unphase, disarm (he couldn't create flames, only manipulate them). Jean Grey? The tactic was a little bit more complex. Suddenly, a sense of realisation and despair filled Kitty; if only she had followed Scotty's warning back in Cherkavi...

But no; _enough_. She had to keep moving. Keep her thoughts _moving_. The paid for therapist back at Strawberry Fields had pinpointed ADD and _boy_ was Kitty feeling it now. She had given Grey and Allerdyce the slip, although reluctantly. Despite it all, they had been great hosts but, weighing up her options, she decided not to be blindfolded (from a certain perspective, at least) and led to their evil lair of terrorism and all its accompanying frolics. The thought was _literally_ treasonous, as far as her (admittedly naïve) understanding of the British legal system went. She had been MIA for a week, in the company of known terrorists; she now fell under the shoot-ask-questions-later act for MI6. But of course, she couldn't just waltz into Strawberry Fields with a merry "Don't worry guys, I'm ok!". She had given _far_ too much information away, willingly or not. That's why she needed Scotty; he'd understand. He'd help. For all she knew, they had gotten the black ops, Roger Moore and the goddamn _Wolverine_ out looking for her. As she paced up and down the carpet of her extravagant hotel suite, Kitty knew she had to act fast. Scotty had _pull_. Scotty had _sway_ with Xavier and Fury; he was an instrumental member of Strawberry Fields. If she got to him, she had a chance of getting out of this mess. If she got to him.

Kitty thought this all over, once more, in the room. She couldn't cry anymore; now was the time to actually grow up. She wouldn't cry anymore. She'd spend a night here, of course, but that's all she would allow herself. She'd leave first thing tomorrow morning, get a place on the Eurostar, kill time till it pulled into Waterloo and find Scotty. She wouldn't allow herself to cry anymore.

She meant it too, and god knows she tried, but the moment she remembered the image of the hidden side of the vase, she found herself collapsing into uncontrollable sobs again. Kitty Pryde, seventeen years old, held her head in her hands for five or so minutes before the tears stopped. Before the knock on the door.

* * *

Kurt watched, through the telescope, as she went to open the door. A man walked in and, pushing the telescope aside for a moment, Kurt's heart sank. _Maybe a friend_, he thought. _Maybe someone's has actually come to help Kitty Pryde_. He pulled himself up in the armchair and grasped the telescope once more. Kitty had taken a few steps back, into the centre of the room, while the man remained half at the door. Well dressed, wearing a warm smile; Kurt was half surprised that Kitty Pryde's new suitor hadn't brought flowers.

Half of Kurt felt glad. Make contact, he had been told, but this was preferable in his mind. For all he knew, this might be her chance to escape their vacuum. Maybe this man was with Strawberry Fields. Maybe he'd take her back to Britain. Maybe Kurt wouldn't have to try and convince her to join their merry band of technically-terrorists.

_Maybe_. But something about this seemed wrong to Kurt. She clearly did not recognise the man and something _definitely_ seemed wrong to Kurt.

* * *

The man, who was currently working under the alias of Bullseye, had many faces, all of which he kept in a little Italian cabinet at the forefront of his mind. Each one was elegantly designed, by the finest of Swiss tailors; each saved for both its own situation and purpose. Some, he had crafted himself; over years and years of noticing just how _unnerved_ people got around his normal face - his _naked_ expressions. When he was thirteen, he had finally perfected the smile; a little thing which, with its help, a person could receive all manner of rewards. At eighteen, he finally found a way to make the smile stretch to and, consequently, _into_ his eyes. He soon realised that he needed more than to simply teach his face little parlor tricks, so he went about designing a dozen or so faces to wear. Only a few were of his own design; for the most part, they were stolen from others. People he knew, people he met. For Katherine Pryde, the man had decided to wear a face that had laid at the bottom of the cabinet for some time now. One reserved for special occasions. For Katherine Pryde, the man had chosen the face of the lover.

"You're saying Patrick Summers sent you?" asked the girl, arms folded against her chest. Her face wore a frown, yet not one as heavy as when she initially saw him.

"Yes," he exclaimed, a little shout and smile. "We've been looking for you for weeks now, thought I had lost you in Germany! Then Scotty sent me here and well," he held his arms wide and shrugged, offering her his most goofy smile; half apologetic, half frantically happy. As soon as he uttered _Scotty_, the frown disappeared. He thought it was wonderful, the ties between people who use the same little nicknames. He had read it in Miranda's report, just a little line that caught his eye; _Patrick Summers, known as Scotty to his agents_. Such a little word and, already, her frown was gone.

Next, he just needed a smile from her. If she smiled, he could hold her eye and smile back. A warm smile, one offering protection and, oh perhaps, a little more. He had played this game before, having never been one to waste a beautiful target. Clearly, she considered his answer. He thought it best to politely wait. Katherine Pryde had spent the last two weeks hiding in her fortress; only patient reassurance would coax her out of its façade. He leant back against the door, his hands in his pockets; submissive, you can't be intimidated by someone with no hands. After a few moments, she looked up at him, so he grinned a deliberately awkward smile. Her eyes darted to the floor, and then looked back. A shy, embarrassed laugh, then a smile. So cliché, he thought, as he felt himself stiffen.

This Pryde girl? There was something else about her, poking at a very primitive corner of his being. Youth spread itself across her face and down her neck, its hands etching over her breasts and sweeping down her thighs. A virgin, no doubt; it was to what extent of that he wanted to discover. Wanted to _explore_. It wouldn't matter to his sponsor if he took his time with her, for there was nothing more subtle than an intimate termination. _La petite mort_.

* * *

_He sent someone_, she thought; _Scotty sent someone to help._ All this while, she had thought that she had been forgotten about, just a name on paper saying _MIA_. But no; even back in London, across seas, Scotty Summers was looking out for her.

The man he had sent seemed nice. Shy, nervous, almost a bit uncertain – she was half surprised he was with the Sentinels. "How comes I've never heard of you before?" she asked.

The man looked at his feet, nervously. "I'm not really sanctioned in Strawberry Fields, I've got to admit." He looked up, a smile on his face. Kitty, despite herself, found herself slowly developing a blush. "But Scotty called me in especially for this. For _you_. He needed someone he could trust outside the organisation."

He kept the half embarrassed smile, yet his gaze remained rooted on her. Kitty found herself shrinking and wanted to slap herself awake. She had more pressing concerns right now than the endearing, and _attractive_, man in front of her.

"You see, everyone's running around in circles at the Fields," he continued. "Scotty wanted to get you back without any fuss, so he went to an outside source for help." The man took a step forward. "That was me, of course."

Why's he getting so close? The man was now close, _too_ close, to Kitty's face. She stumbled backwards, until her legs hit the front of the bed. She was struggling to find her composure; her face felt red, her thoughts wildly, frantically circling, rattling and creaking, around the room where, at its center, stood herself, the man and the bed. Something inside tried to catch her attention. Tried to tell her to regain control of the conversation. Yet, why bother? The more the man spoke, the less worries Kitty was left with. All her troubles were being solved right before her eyes and, at least a large part of her, wanted to just sit back and watch it all fade into the corners of the room. So easily, she could slip into the role of the spectator who, with eyes closed, listened and hummed to the composition. The composition currently occurring, recurring; about to occur.

"You alright?" A voice broke through the haze. Suddenly she became aware of a hand cradling her face. She looked up, suddenly aware that she had been starring at her own feet, and was greeted by his face. The man's face, the one Scott had sent to help her. He was still looking. Gazing. She felt him take her hand and grip it. She smelled his aftershave, smooth and expensive. She saw his face moving slowly towards her and she felt her lips begin to separate and

"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

She jumped, as if awaking from a deep sleep, and felt her hand go loose. The man before her turned round in a single swing and, there behind him, stood another. A young man, with unruly black hair. To Kitty, he sorta looked like Javis Cocker.

"I can come back later, I just wanted to make sure everything was alri-"

A small burst of wind and the sound of impact. She knew the sound; a silencer. There was only one man in front of her now, the first man. The door now held a small hole at the centre. She focused on it and noticed a trail of smoke, only for her vision to go black. She then felt herself falling backwards, onto the bed.

The room seemed to spin, pain shooting up her leg as it hit the wooden front of the bed. She landed softly, with little noise, and looked at the scene before her. The man, the second man, had his back to her only a few feet away, facing the first. He half turned his face, their eyes meeting;

"Kitty, get out of here!"

_Kitty_. He had called her Kitty. While Javis Cocker starred at her, the blond man raised his gun once more. She meant to shout, to warn him, but another BANG! cut her off. It didn't matter though, because Javis Cocker was no longer there. He was behind blondy now, with his arm raised. It came down, and the room filled with an animistic scream.

* * *

A bolt of pain; his face. Jesus fuck, his face! He grasped it with his empty hand and, on feeling its liquid, flowing surface, let out another scream. The cunt had cut his fucking _face_.

There was a shout, from who he couldn't tell, so he leaped for the mutant. He didn't mean to drop his gun, but he used it to grip the fist holding the knife that just cut him. He moved his fingers to search for the blade; yes, there it was. His eyesight was a field of red grass obscuring whatever scene was before him, so he kicked out his leg. It made contact with something hard, a leg bone, and felt himself collapse to the floor and onto what felt like a sandbag. The arm he had grabbed tried to move. He gripped it harder. He turned his head slightly and just about made out the hand, the knife and the mutant. _Just a kid_, he thought. _This fucking piece-of-shit kid just cost me my face!_ He turned his hand and heard a snap, then a scream. The mutant's hand went limp and the knife fell; he grabbed it before it reached the floor. He spun it in his hand. With its handle held between his palm and thumb, he brought it down on mutants face.

The sound of a gun firing, then a bolt of pain in his shoulder. He howled and fell to his left, feeling the carpet burn against his left arm. The knife hadn't made contact.

He ran a hand across the skin of his face, whipping the blood to the floor, and looked up. On the bed, on her knees, was Pryde, holding a pistol between both of her hands. It took him a moment to realise it was aimed at him.

"You _bitch_!" he screamed, "Shoot _him_, not me!" She did neither, instead falling through the bed and out of sight. After a moment's delay, he remembered the mutant laying to his right. He picked up the knive again and, swinging himself onto the mutant, gripping the mutant's chest with his own knees, pulled the knife up above him. The mutant looked up, holding his own broken hand. The man felt a smile, the first _real_ smile in a long time, cross his face.

Suddenly, he felt the fresh air on his face, and noticed the loud sound of traffic.

* * *

The woman behind the reception desk screamed as Kitty gently fell to the floor, landing with both hands clutching the carpet. Kitty pushed herself to her feet and ran for the door. A security guard lunged for her, but she merely went through him and was greeted by sunshine. She made her way to run down the street only to stop, looking at the crowd gathered at the center of the street. A ring of people, maybe twelve or more, with two at the center; the two men from before. _How did they get out here_? she wondered. _Do they have the go-through-thingy too_? The blonde one sat on the black haired one, with his arms raised… What was in his…

He brought down the knife. A flying streak of red. Screams, one of them her own. He turned his head in her direction. _He heard_.

She tried to move, but her legs decided to be awfully unresponsive. The blond man pulled himself up. Down his face, covering one entire eye, was a large streak of red; a little white in it too. _Come on Kitty,_ thought Kitty; _move Kitty_. He stepped over the other man's body and put his hand into his waste jacket. He pulled out a gun. _Move Kitty. _He aimed it, with one hand. He aimed it at her.

_Move Kitty._

The crowd around her erupted at the sound of the gunshot, as if parting like an ocean to let her through. Blurs of people warped past her field of vision, blurred by both motion and the tears that the harsh wind caused her eyes. She could just about hear screams, other screams, over the sound of her own hurried breaths. Another gunshot; the sound of a window smashing. Kitty almost wished she was insane. She wished that the final thread of her own sanity would just snap. If she was insane, she would just phase through the street, into the concrete, into the Prussian sewers; the city's vermin, mold and shit would be her refuge. But she, or at least the last part of her sanity, knew that wasn't an option; she couldn't keep herself phasing in her current state of mind. Yet, so what? She could dive into the concrete street, immerse herself in it, and just _let go_. Let herself become one with the concrete. The story of how Kitty Pryde disappeared, never to be found again. It would be painless, most likely. One minute, whole Kitty. Next? Brain in concrete, done-a-reeno Kitty Preado, goodbye world hello ground, what are you doing here in my eyes?

Yet, at the sound of further gunfire, and a young girl's shriek, she kept going; kept running. The hounds were at her feet and some foolish stupid naïve seventeen year old girl straight out of GCSEs part of her was still trying to convince her that she _could_ survive. It was bizarre; she knew she was going to die, understood it. Yet. Why did she keep running?

_Because it wouldn't be sport unless I ran_, she thought. _I've got to be good game._

So she ran. She ran until she couldn't even tell how long she had been running for. Gunshots followed; she didn't know how many missed, and how many she dodged, in that tangy-intangy manner of hers. With the hounds at her feet, the wolf through the door and straight into the living room, Kitty _ran_.

Then, suddenly, she hit something. It was a soft, fleshy something. She opened her eyes; it had been too painful to run with them open, with the wind hitting them.

It was a man. An elderly man; grey hair, age lines. He wore a grey hoodie, its bagginess only emphasizing his thin upper body. On that face, was an equally weary smile. She took a step back, but he caught her gaze. For a moment, there was no gunshots or screams. Just a still silence, made imperfect by the sound of birds high up above them.

"I must say, you're in a bit of a hurry," said the old man. "Is everything alright, Miss?" She opened her mouth to speak. She had to tell him to get out of here, had to tell him to run before he got hurt.

"Please, just run," she begged, tears in her eyes. She knew her time was up; it was dead-Kitty o'clock, bam, headfirst down onto the pavement. But she couldn't let someone else be brought down with her; she couldn't. "I can't explain but please, its dangerous here right now!"

The man smiled a warm, grandfatherly smile. "It's quite alright, young miss. I'm here to help."

"No," she began, "you don't under-"

A gunshot obliterated the street's silence.

She turned around. There he stood, the blond man, holding a smoking gun to the sky. He stood maybe twenty feet away from them, smiling. He lowered the gun till it pointed at them.

"You know, you really should be on your way old man," he shouted towards them. "I would hate to see anyone else getting unnecessarily hurt."

* * *

The sound of birds.

Kurt groaned.

His mouth filled with blood.

_I'm dying_, he thought. _I'm fucking dying_.

He felt the rough texture of the road against his arms. There was no noise around him. He was dying, and not a single person seemed to care. He didn't know if he would've preferred a crowd. _I guess I've missed the chance to return that book_, he thought.

He gagged on more blood and frantically tried to spit it out. He felt its warmth spilling through his teeth, down his face and cheeks. He waited for death, whatever form it'd decide to arrive in. He heard its voice:

"You know, I wanted to meet you before this was all over. Just once. I'm sorry that it had to be in this situation".

Death had a woman's voice? He strained his ears for the sound of hooves.

"You won't remember this; if you survive, that is. But I'm glad we got the chance to meet, Kurt."

His vision began to fade. The last thing Kurt saw in that Parisian street was the image of a beautiful woman, whose blonde hair shone in the sun.

* * *

Kitty placed herself in front of the old man and, putting her arm behind her, gripped his arm. She knew she probably couldn't phase right now, as panicked as she was, but maybe, if he got what he wanted and killed her…

She felt herself brushed – gently – aside, as the old man moved in front of her. She went to pull him aside, but his voice stopped Kitty in her tracks.

"I'm sorry to say, but I must judge any man who'd want to hurt a young creature like this," he said. "I suggest you put the gun down now, young man. Before you get yourself into any further trouble."

Kitty's heart froze. A look of fury crossed the assassin's face. "Please!" she begged. This was greeted by a smile; the assassin's teeth were red. Before she could say anymore, she was interrupted the by the sound of gunfire. Her eyes closed automatically and, once the moment was over, she was afraid to open them. To see what sight awaited her. But there was no sudden cry, no sound of an impact.

She opened her eyes. The old man stood before her still, with no sign that he had been injured. Yet, from the smoke lazily flowing from the tip of his revolver, it was clear the man had fired. Had he missed? Surely not. The man cast a confused look down at his gun. Kitty moved to push the old man away, only for him to gently, but with some strength, push her back again.

"Would you say I gave him adequate warning, Kitty?" he asked, the same warm smile on his face. Kitty looked back at the assassin; he had cocked his gun, preparing for another shot.

Then, the sound of screeching.

A large white blur crossed her vision, crossed the street, where the man stood, obliterating his image. The white blur continued, the man having assassin having fanished. It went to the left, to a wall of grey, and was followed by the sound of a gigantic crash. Kitty's eyes focused on the left side of the street before her. Where once stood what might have been a café. Now, it was merely a pile of ruble, the glass window scattered in a thousand places. The back of a white van could be seen half inside; half concealed under rubble.

Kitty looked back at the old man.

He smiled. A genuine smile, she thought. Yet she couldn't feel the beating of her own heart.

She went to say something, but found she had no voice.

She had been taught what to do if she encountered certain mutants on the field. Taught a strategy for each. The strategy, the _tactic_, Scotty had taught for the man before her was the most simple of them all;

_Run_.

"I think it would be best to make a speedy exist," said Erik Lehnsherr. "Wouldn't you agree?"


	12. Part Two - Chapter Five

Chapter Five

* * *

"In the path of righteous man, there is rubble where I stand."

Mansun, _Dark Mavis_

* * *

Whiteness, replaced swiftly again with black. The white was blaring, painful to his eyes, the darkness proving far more agreeable. The changes between the two, and the consequent pain, continued for some time. "He's regaining consciousness, doctor", said a voice, but he didn't have enough time to process it before the white faded out again, as his mind tumbled gently back into the dark.

* * *

He reversed the car into the parking space and closed his eyes. Erik Lehnsherr wasn't an enthusiast of driving, finding himself often drained after long periods of being behind the wheel. Eric took a deep breath in and ran a hand through his hair. He killed the engine of the SUV and, struggling his eyes against the darkness seeping in from outside, looked to the girl in the passenger seat. She had been quiet for some time and it didn't surprise Eric to find her asleep. She sat with her legs pressed against her chest, the seat belt hanging from her side, her head against the window. The ferry hadn't arrived yet, so he decided to let the girl sleep. With some discretion, he slowly opened the door of the vehicle and let himself out. Breathing in a breath of the night's air, he turned his gaze to the docks ahead of him. There was only a single car in the dock's modestly sized car park, leading Eric to assume it belonged to the man in the security booth who had let them drive in.

Eric spotted a nearby phone booth and checked his pockets for change. Finding a couple of euros, he pulled the top of his grey hoodie over his head and made his way to it, gripping the front of it to his chest to avoid the cold. Before entering the booth, he turned his head again to look towards the dock. There was still no sight of their transport. Letting the heavy, metal door of the booth close behind him, Lehnsherr put his trembling fingers to use and uttered a short curse as he misdailed. After successfully tapping the number in, and holding the phone to his ears, he looked back at the SUV. He had just about managed to make out the girl in the front seat when the dialing ended.

He was greeted by a professional, almost automatic voice, wishing him a good evening. "Yes, hello," he replied, "may I speak to Miss Chantel?"

Some pause. He placed his spare arm under his armpit, further feeling the cold air. "Good evening," a voice said after some delay, "this is Lourdes Chanetel of Shaw Industries, how may I help?"

* * *

"So, that's it then? No news on Kitty?"

They sat in a small cafe by the main road of Oxford Circus. Monroe had chosen the location, forcing Scott to take the underground for the first time since his "retirement". They had both followed the usual protocols, checking for doubles as they walked, each with an agenda. Had they noticed a double face, the same face spotted twice during the journey, they would have phoned to tell the other they'd be late, and go about the agenda. The agenda Scott choose today was shirt shopping in Oxford Circus and, not possessing an adequate understanding of current fashion, he was glad the need to resort to the agenda hadn't arised.

Monroe took a deep breath, followed by a drag of her cigarette. Throughout the year he had known her, Summers had never seen her smoke before. After dabbing the cigarette against the side of the ash tray, and taking another sip of her coffee, Monroe rose her eyes to his once more. "I'm sorry Scotty, but it's a no-go at the moment. Entirely in the hands of Miranda Nettle and her crew, preparing for an internal inquiry or the like. They want to keep most of her former task force members out of it, so there goes my efforts at ladder climbing," she said, and directed a hollow sounding laugh at him. "My guess is that Kitty's been written off; a no-show, dirty laundry that is far too stained to wear again. If anything in Paris today was related to her, well, I guess that's at Nettle's discretion to share."

Miranda Nettle wasn't a face Summers was altogether familiar with. An officer at the Circus, who Charles never quite took too and was resigned to a backseat position. A mutant agent, codenamed _Siren_ on the single mission Summers worked directly with her on. Ambitious to boot. Scotty often thought that the Circus could be surmised into two camps. First was Charles Xavier's task force of extraordinary men and women, enlisted to serve their country and, consequently, found themselves pushing Xavier's left-wing, idealistic agenda. Second was Fury's half, designed essentially to counterbalance Xavier's. Using that perspective, Miranda Nettle avoided an easy classification, having deliberately catered to and for both sides. In the long-term manner of things, this had clearly paid off, with Nettle currently serving as the head for a special, new division, designed by a certain Miss Frost.

"Don't think I brought you here for nothing, Scotty," she continued, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small folder, "take a look at these." She glanced towards the window at the front of the cafe, before pushing him the documents. "No matter what, you definitely did _not_ get this from me, Scotty. The whole thing creeps me out."

_Newford_, the front simply exclaimed. He knew the name, and some minor details. Some manner of project Xavier was chased up about, although Summer's had simply heard of it as "Fury's Newford Plant idea". Henry McCoy had been contracted to it, with the public face of the project being that of an experimental project into renewable energy. Despite those two facts being publicly obtainable, Summers didn't feel the need to share his knowledge with Monroe. _Just in case_, he thought. He looked through the papers, mostly consisting of early sketchings of press releases, to be handled by _Stark Industries_. He raised his head and met Munroe's gaze. "Stark?" he asked, "the arms company?"

"_Former_-arms company, Scotty. They've gone pretty hippy-like of late, something you'd know if you've paid attention to general world events". Summers decide to let that little dig slide. "Plus, they're more a conglomerate this days. Spent the last few years eating up a lot of businesses, including a certain Frost Foundation."

_Frost Foundation_? "As in, Emma Frost?" he asked.

"Indeed, set up by her father back in the 80s. After his death, Emily Frost, his only child, reshuffled the innards to focus primarily on mutant rights and away from its other social focuses". Summers turned his eyes to the cafe's window, to the street beyond it. _No doubles so far_, he thought.

"And the move from arms to renewable energy? Did Tony Stark get bought out or something?"

Munroe forced a stiff laugh. "Stark Industries now predominantly acts as the public face of its corporate blob, fitting the green-coat with fair trade projects, proposing experimental changes to production to decrease emissions and, of course, renewable energy. Sponsoring, or however you want to dub it, smaller corporations like the Frost Foundation is one of its favorite plays right now, going for the whole social rights angle. It runs its arms development and manufacturing through its smaller, more hidden divisions, such as Shaw Industries. God knows how Tony Stark manages to make a profit out of any of this."

_A British project financed by Stark Industries, one of the world's leading developers of military technology, with strong links to the Frost Foundation, the head of which has made her way into the manager's tent of the Circus_, Summers surmised in his head as he boarded the Circle Line. His journey was increased due to delays from the protests, with several stations having been shut down for _public security_. On his way back to his apartment, he counted three faces that were potential, if unlikely, doubles.

* * *

Kitty kept her chin balanced against the metal railing, as she looked out across the water below the ferry. She concluded that, surprisingly, she was content with the current situation. It certainly wasn't an ideal situation, having become associated with a known-terrorist after all, but for the first time in a great many weeks, she felt truly safe. In her mind, she attributed this to the presence of Erik Lehnsherr. Of course, she could be cynical about his intentions for doing so and certainly was, but he had promised to keep her safe, and it was a promise she found herself, once more despite her best intentions, believing.

She rose her head at the sound of footsteps and, slowly spinning her body against the railing, found herself greeted by the site of Erik Lehnsherr bearing a tray of food. "I asked if one of the crewmates could prepare us some food before they collected us," he explained with a smile, as he made his way towards her. "I can't say I'm personally a fan of McDonald's, but I doubt either of us will complain." He held the tray out out for her and Kitty choose a Big Mac from the offering. "The gentleman explained that he hadn't arrived in time for, excuse me," he broke off for a second, clearly trying to recollect the conversation. "Ah, of course, the 'breakfast menu', but I think we're both to famished to really begrudge the poor man." He gave her a grandfatherly wink, before selecting his own paper-wrapped burger and set the tray down on the ground.

"Thank you, Mister Lehnsherr," she said, managing a smile, before unwrapping her own burger. "It really means a lot."

His smile, which had previously collapsed, began to reform itself, the age marks and wrinkles spreading warmly around his mouth and eyes. They both took their positions against the railing, watching the distant shore edge closer and closer as they ate their fast-food breakfast.

"So," she said, after some silence, "you disagree with Charles Xavier then. Like, the whole mutant-human harmony angle?"

He laughed. "Straight to the point, I see!" He took a moment to consider the question, before turning to face her again, a smile on his face.

"I don't think its a matter of _disagreeing_ with Charles, compared to merely seeing through the facade he keeps at the forefront of all his moral rhetoric. Of course, it is up to you to make your own mind up over these things, Kitty, but I think Charles has blinded himself to the realities of things. As ten people are excuted for the crime of bearing a gene in Russia, Charles focuses on warm reception to some pro-mutant speech at Oxford. As mutancy, as its now referred to, is outlawed in yet another country, Charles looks over the portfolio of a successful mutant graduate and sees only progress. Charles clenches his eyes shut at all times, because they're too sensitive to handle the world that stands infront of them. He blinds himself, because seeing things as they are is too painful for him."

"And how are things? As they are, I mean?" asked Kitty, astonished by her own bravery for voicing such a question. Erik Lehnsherr merely let out a startled laugh and, continuing to look out towards the approaching shoreline, prepared his answer.

"Not very good, I have to say. Even as we speak, men and women picked by the British public to serve as their representatives are discussing new ways to limit the freedom of mutants. Of course, none of what we - myself and others like Jean, I mean - do is going to change their minds, but we try to keep our actions as pacified as possible. What we aim to achieve, in my mind, is to works as individuals to unite as a symbol; people are more likely to act against something they disagree with if they know others are doing the same. An office worker is more likely to voice a controversial opinion, for example, if he knows others are shedding their own blood for the same opinion, or something quite like it." Lehnsherr turned his head to face her, and after offering her another smile, continued.

"Of course, the eyes with which I see the world are more pessimistic in nature than Charles's, I shall admit, but even I believe that there exist undeniably less savory aspects to his vision for the world. In particular, sacrificing, or at the very least, watering down his own ambitions and values to appease political masters, who in turn see him as a mere fool who, despite their attempts at understanding why, has gained some significance in their sphere of society. Then, there's his recruiting of young mutants like yourself into our little conflict, which strikes me frequently as absurd. I don't mean to be patronizing, but it's my belief that people of your age should be allowed to enjoy the world, before being asked to change it".

* * *

Kurt Wagner had gained full consciousness for sometime now. He sat in his bed, ready to leave it at a moment's notice if he felt something was wrong. Some ten minutes ago a young nurse had entered the room and, appearing surprised to see him awake, and having checked his vitals, announced that she was going to find someone who would do a better job at explaining things, before excusing herself from the room. He had spent the time since trying to recount his final conscious moments in Paris.

He remembered clearly the process that lead to his decision to jump into Pryde's hotel room. Apparently it was the right decision too, based on the other man's response. Suit, gun; assassin? Had he been sent to kill Kitty Pryde, or merely anyone who tried to make contact with her? Did he work for any particular service and, if so, did they now know Kurt's identity? He tried to remember what happened next. A scuffle, of some sort. He thought to teleport to the street below, but couldn't tell in hindsight if he had been successful. All he remembered after that was a world of pain and, immediately following it, darkness.

There was a knock at the door. A pause followed, as if the person was awaiting his approval to enter. After some seconds passed, the door opened slightly, followed by a head appearing behind the door. "Sorry to intrude," said the head, "but I was wondering if you're feeling up for a chat? Can totally understand if you're not, I can easily just come back latter." The head now smiled apologetically.

Kurt waved him in with his hand and the rest of the body the head belonged to appeared. "Sorry about all this, but its great you've recovered as much as you have. So fast, I mean. My name is Sebastian Shaw, and I believe we share a friend or two in common."


	13. Part Two - Chapter Six

Chapter Six

"I call up my friend the good angel, but she's out with her answerphone. She says she would love to come help, but the sea would electrocute us all"

Radiohead, _(Nice Dream)_

* * *

"They're here," said Eric Lehnsherr and, as she looked out towards the ocean, Kitty noticed the sound of a low hum fill the air. In response, the ferry began to slow. She turned her head and found the source; a helicopter appearing from the dawn clouds, approaching from the opposite shore. As she gripped the railing, Kitty felt a firm hand grip her shoulder. "Don't worry Kitty," said Lehnsherr, "they're just a couple of friends."

The helicopter hovered over the ferry, the sound of its turbines causing Kitty to cringe. After circling the landing pad, it descended on the top of the ferry. She could make out the silhouettes of two men emerging from its chamber, one gently helping the other step down from inside. One man, who wore a bright burgundy suit, continued to aid the other down the stairs that led from the helipad to the platform Kitty and Lehnsherr stood on. As they approached, the man supporting the other waved towards them. As they got closer, Kitty was allowed a better look at the pair. The man in the burgundy suit was smiling, almost apologetically, his elegantly groomed black goatee spreading with his lips.

"It's great to finally meet you in person, Erik," the man in red suit yelled over the sound of the helicopter. Two men appeared from a stairwell to their left, both wearing orange Hi Vis jackets. They ran towards the pair and, with help from the man in the suit, put the seemingly winded man between the two of them, an arm around each one's shoulder, before guiding him towards the stairwell that went down into the downstairs interior. The man in the suit showed them no mind however, placing his hands into the pockets of his shirt trousers as he strode towards Kitty and Tutor.

"Honest," he said as he finally reached them, taking Lehnsherr's hand with a smile. "Absolutely _marvelous_ to meet in person my friend." He turned to face Kitty. "And Miss Pryde, I can't begin to tell you how glad I was to hear you got out of Paris safely." He lent slightly towards Kitty as he extended his hand. Without intending to, she cast a nervous glance towards Lehnsherr.

"This, Kitty, is my good friend Sebastian Shaw," he explained, as she took Shaw's hand. He proceed to cusp it with both hands, shaking it giddily. "If not for him," Lehnsheer continued, "I very much doubt we would have gotten to you in time."

"I was half worried I had acted on the information too late," Shaw professed, as he finally let go of her hand. His smile disappeared for a moment, as he glanced past both Kitty and Lehnsherr. "So Tutor," he said and, after a moment, his smile returned. "When's the rest of the gang getting here?"

* * *

"Do you really have to go John? I do have the entire morning off, you know."

John Allerdyce was fixing his tie, a freshly poured glass of vodka in front of him on the desk, as he listened to the woman moan. He would be the first suggest that a trip to the coast, for the sake of entertaining some mysterious billionaire, wasn't an entirely enjoyable prospect, yet he knew better than to refuse. The man behind the man had decided to make himself known and, for whatever reason, had apparently asked personally for Allerdyce's presence.

"Got to, beautiful. Big man says jump, etcetera," he said and, tie finished, lent over to pick up up his vodka. He was obligated to go of course, but not obligated to attend sober.

Having taken a sip, Allerdyce spun around on the spot and sat down on the desk, looking towards his bed's current occupé. Looking at her as she laid on her side and gazed at him, her lips forming a content smile as the bed sheets struggled to hide her naked body, Allerdyce found himself afraid that the girl was growing fond of him. He wasn't so naive as to miss all those little obvious signs. If that was the case, however, he'd have to deal with that later. She turned on her back and, gently pushing herself off the bed, let the duvet fall away. Allerdyce smiled at her as she made her way towards him and, lowering his vodka on to the desk, greeted her with his free hand. With her arms around his neck, she pulled herself towards him.

Her name was Elizabeth Something, twenty-something years old. Allerdyce understood that she had been in the middle of some sort of teacher training course when her mutancy let itself be known. A kind of mutancy that would have been quite hard to hide too, considering her segmented tail and all. As he ran a hand down her thigh, he felt her tail brush his cheek and, as he thought about the lethal venom it contained, found himself growing aroused again. _Even I'm not brave enough __to make a joke about being a Scorpio_, he thought.

* * *

Nicholas Fury sat the phone down back on his hook and, leaning back in his chair, attempted to calm himself with a slow inhale of air. He had just taken a call in his private office, from a number few in the service knew about, let alone the Fields. His assistant, Maria, brought the phone to his desk as it rang, being one of the few members of the Circus who knew the identity of the caller. As always, she left the room promptly before he answered it. Fury had permitted information about the number to less than a handful of individuals in the service, including Maria. The conversation today lasted longer than usual, the subject simple; the mother of his child lambasted him for missing the primary school football match he had previously promised to attend.

Fury's lovechild, a five year old son conceived when Fury was twenty nine, was only another part of his private life he kept hidden away from prying eyes. For better or worse, it was a simple truth that there weren't many prying eyes. Nicholas Fury liked to believe he held very little hubris, fully acknowledging the initial backbench nature of the role he had been given by the senior members of the intelligence service three years ago. Back then, mutant terrorism was not considered a major problem in the UK, counting only a handful of cases in its history. When Charles Xavier, with all his rhetoric and ancestral capital, approached the Minster of Defense with a rough plan for a security division dedicated to mutants, the people at the top of the service were in hysterics, as they put aside their news-clippings of NRA atrocities for the moment. When the Minister's government started a pro-mutant campaign, their ears suddenly peaked up in unison. Of course, there was no chance of such a division being founded with public money, but Xavier offered up a small fortune to fix that problem.

Nicholas Fury might strike someone as an odd choice to lead such a division, but the smaller details enlightens the decision making the heads of the service made. Obviously, a mutant couldn't lead the department, a fact that needed to be explained to Charles Xavier who, in Fury's opinion at least, never quite managed to puzzle out the concept of a 'vested interest'. Instead, and in-keeping with the crowd-pleasing aim of the department's construction, Fury was selected partially because he was black, young and good looking. Of course, it never quite made the public forget about Stephen Lawrence but it was a nice little gesture regardless. His father's own lengthy in the career also did wonders for his case, as did his own long and healthy career in the army, backed up by a couple of years he had thrown in with blacks ops. In particular, it was the bullet that ended his army career that secured him the placement. It took several tests to conclude that the headaches didn't justify an operation to remove it from his skull, and a dozen or so more to conclude that it did indeed hamper any efforts by anyone possessing telepathy to read his mind. And so Fury was invited into the service due to racial pandering, nepotism and coincidence, all three of these reasons Fury was the first to the first to acknowledge. Yet, none of this dissuaded the ambitious Nicholas Fury. By the time that a certain 'Tutor' had declared open war against society, and an attentive media made it its front page, the service's higher-ups would've likely been looking to redesign the now necessary department from the top down. A lesser man would have been fired. Fury received extra resources and a place near, but not quite at, the top of the service.

Stuff like his illegitimate child? It wouldn't hurt Nicholas Fury at this point. He just didn't want to fit any racial stereotypes. What could hurt Fury, however, was the events that had taken place less than twenty four hours ago in Paris. Of course, he knew very little details about what happened, or the level in which people in his own department were involved. If anything, that was one of the many plays that bringing in an outside agent like Emily Frost gave him; the ability to grant her high-levels of capacity, while not reducing his share in culpability. But that wasn't something Fury put too much emphasis on, because he understood that Emily Frost wasn't someone likely to fail. He had little doubt that Paris was in some way a success, which in itself was an odd notion, seeing as he knew very few details about what had taken place. So, at 9AM that November morning, as Emily Frost sat opposite him behind the front of his desk, Fury asked the all-important question.

"And how," he ventured, "would you consider Paris a success?"

"Fury, I hope you don't think any less of me for what I'm about to admit," replied Emma, after some hesitation. "I didn't intend to decieve you, but with so many of Xavier's lot running around here, I couldn't risk your usual procedures."

Xavier's lot? Fury was already starting to dislike where this was going. She paused her explanation and, after a few seconds of silence, decided to take the bait. "The question now, of course, is why you felt the need to hide your operation away from the eyes of most of the Circus, Emma."

"Because, very simply, I don't know who to trust here just yet. You can't deny it Nick, at least half of this Circus owes their allegiance to Charles Xavier, and with good reason. He'll always put mutants first," she said, and then paused for a moment, as if carefully crafting in her mind what was about to leave her lips. "Even if said mutant is currently on the run and possesses state secrets. I couldn't allow the leak, Nick."

He couldn't fault her for that line of thought, as it was one that had occurred to himself several times in the past. "And so," he continued, "you put together a small task force consisting of agents and officers who possess no tangible ties to Xavier, correct? We're talking about people like Miranda Nettle and Adam Baldwin. Hardly a collection of stunning portfolios."

"I have no doubt," Emma replied immediately, "that the people I handpicked were perfectly capable for the operation, and can only guess that the lack of achievement to their names is due to Xavier's use of favoritism to fill the ceiling corners with his own little spiders. And I wouldn't have been so successful in Paris, had I been wrong about their qualifications."

_She plays this all very well_, thought Fury, as he reclined in his chair. He allowed himself to look her up and down one more time, letting her see exactly what he was doing. She offered him a sultry smile in return. "As I said before, I believe my results will wipe the floor with any complaints from MI6, Fury."

"And what results did you get, exactly?"

She offered him an embarrassed smile, one that impressed him for seeming almost genuine. "First of all, information. Stuff that'll change our game board entirely." The collective tense wasn't missed by Fury. "Secondaly, I've devised a manner in which, I believe, we can put this information to the most optimal use."

Fury waved her to continue and, pulling out a cigerrette from his cigar case, sat back and listened. When she handed him the appropriate documents, he quickly glanced through them, before looking back to her.

Within just a few minutes, Emma Frost held Fury's full attention.

After reading the document for a further few minutes, Fury broke the silence. "From what I'm reading, your plan would lead me to expect a large number of casualties. Of _fatalities_. You of course already understand this." He paused for a moment. "You're happy to see that, then? You'd prepared to witness the results?"

"Nick," Emma replied, "I wouldn't be eating up your time right now if I wasn't."

"You sure about this?" He put the documents down on the desk and reached for his glass of water. "You absolutely sure of this?" he continued. "You've ran this through statistics? Outsourced the contracts? Established corresponding dates and times?"

She smiled and shuffled against her seat. "I've divided the variables amongst my task team and yes, I've already setup a task team." Sitting cross-legged, she tightened the grip, running one thigh slowly over the other. "There will be casualities, and _fatalities_, yes - but among them will be several infamous mutant terrorists. And not only does that look good on _paper_, but I can ensure you this will be the final push you need to wrestle Xavier out of here. It's all there Nick, right in front of you and, as we _speak_, my officers are making what you're reading a reality."

* * *

"You quite done recovering yet?

He opened his eyes, and immediately regretted doing so. He recognised the room he was in; a hospital room, the same one he had awoken to several times now. He raised a hand over the right side of his face and felt the plaster that cradled it; _still ruined_. He thought momentarily about reconstructive surgery, before focusing on the source of the question.

"I guess I should be flattered you came all the way out here for me, Miranda," he said, his throat dry and raspy. He studied her for a moment; prim and proper, as always. _Miranda Nettle remains incredibly fuckable even in the midst of a disaster_, he thought.

"You're not someone who gets to make jokes right now, No-Name," she said, his comment apparently not well received. "By the way, you should consider the chances of us giving you a new name a very low prospect right now." She stood at the edge of his bed, arms crossed, one hand clutching a lit cigarette. He considered making a joke about consideration for the ill, but thought better against it. "You know," she continued, as a vulgar smile formed on her face, "the doctor working on your case made some interesting notes, No-Name. How your injuries should have been fatal, the speed of your recovery, etcetera." She took a drag of her cigarette. "Why did you hide the fact your a mutant from us, No-Name?" Again, he saw no reason to reply and instead turned his head towards the window. He could hear traffic, quite dense in sound; congestion.

He felt something heavy on his chest and, turning his head back, found a small shoebox placed on his chest. Miranda made her way from his side back to the foot of the bed, crossing her arms once again. "Don't tell me I got blood on my own," he said, raising himself up and placing the box in his hands. "They were Bruno Magli."

Again, she did not greet his joke with a smile. "We can discuss your mutant status later and, by the way, I expect full details. For now, just worry about what's in your hands." He looked back down towards the box and took the lid off. Inside, amongst the packaging, was a small sheet of paper with what looked like a phone number on it, along with a relatively sturdy handgun.

"There's seven bullets in there," she continued, "to save you from counting. Enough I'd say to get you out of here safely." She took a final drag of her cigarette before letting it fall to the floor, crushing it under her hill. "Needless to say, the less people who remember you being here, the better for me and my employer."

He took out the gun and opened it. She had told the truth; seven bullets. "The number?" he asked, after placing the gun on his thigh.

She ignored him for a moment, instead walking to the door and opening it slightly. "When you're out, call it. A Phoebe should answer," she said and, pulling the door open and taking a step through, cast him a final look. "I had to convince my employer that you were still useful. Don't fuck this up."

A second later, he was alone in the room.

* * *

Kitty walked down the stairs, gripping the handrail as she descended. With every step, the howl of sea wind quietened until she finally arrived in the Ferry's bar area, furnished with drab red and browns. The ferry had arrived at the port maybe ten minutes ago and, as conversation turned to business, Kitty decided to leave the two men alone, deciding it was best to let them talk without watching what they said with her present. On a stool, at the unstocked bar, sat the man who had been carried down earlier. He was cradling his head in his hands, gently running his fingers through his hair. Her assumption had proven correct; he was the man from before. From the hotel room. Pausing for a moment, she found the courage to speak up.

"Hey," she half stuttered, "I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday." He turned to look at her, as she stood in the door space. "I owe you, you know? Without you I'd be pretty... well," she paused. "Dead, I guess."

The man tried a smile, then winced in pain. She found herself discretely trying to look at his neck. This was the guy from before. The guy whose neck she saw sliced open.

"It's no biggy, I guess," he said, after some time. "You kind of saved my life too, remember?"

She smiled, feeling for some reason embarrassed. "Those guys are having their little espionage talk right now," she explained. "Mind if I sit next to you for a bit?"

Again, he gave her that same pained smile and motioned towards the stool next to him. Kitty made her way to the bar and sat down, spinning in her seat to face him. He remained crouched over the bar, his turtleneck pulled up.

"I'm going to have to ask a pretty rude question," she blurted out.

"Go on."

"I'm sorry."

"It's no problem," he replied.

"How are you alive right now?"

He laughed, before erupting into a series of coughs. "I'd like to know myself," he confessed, after the coughing subsided. "I reckon Mr Big up there has some manner of mutant up on his side."

"So you're religious," Kitty said.

"Yeah, why?" he asked, looking somewhat confused.

"Mr Big up there?"

"Oh," he said, as he lifted himself off the bar and spun round to face her. "Not God. I meant the guy in the suit. I reckon he's got a mutant that can heal people, or the like."

"Oh."

"You?" he asked.

"Me?" she replied.

"Religious?"

"Jewish."

"Ah," he said, and a silence followed. Before either of them could figure out another route of conversation, the sound of footsteps came from the stairwell, along with a shout.

"Hey, you two," shouted Shaw down to them. "The others are here now." He paused and, based on the noise that suddenly reached her ears, Kitty guessed he was noting the same noise. "Oh good, right on time," he said, as the sound of a second helicopter grew louder.

* * *

As they stepped onto the ferry, Jean glanced around, suppressing her nervousness. She could just about make out Tutor standing alone by the railing, facing her and Allerdyce as they approached. In fact, he was staring exactly at her, forecasting worry on his face. Three people emerged from a stairwell to their left. Squinting, she could just about make out Kitty Pryde and Kurt. She assumed the man with them was the enigma they had been invited to meet.

She looked up. A helicopter circled above them. A series of metal chains were tied to its feet, as it carried some manner of grey obelisk in the air above them.

Allerdyce must have read her mind, as he leaned in to whisper that, if anything went wrong, he had his lighter. She didn't reply, but simply kept walking towards the group of people now gathered on the middle of the deck.

"What is this, Sebastian?" shouted Lehnsherr over the sound of the helicopter, as the two men from before emerged on the deck and ran to its center. Slowly, the helicopter descended, until its deliveraly landed onto the deck with a bang, stiffled by the sound of its turbines.

"Just a little gift to say thank you, Erik" Shaw shouted back, as he waved at Jean and Allerdyce. The two men finished unhooking the chains from the obelisk and, as they ran back to the stairwell, the helicopter began to ascend again.

"Any idea what's going on?" Kitty whispered to Kurt, but he could only shake his head.

"He didn't mention anything to me about this on the journey over."

As they approached the obelisk, and as the sound of the second helicopter became less overwhelming, Shaw put an arm around Lehnsherr's shoulder. "What I'm about to show you is something that Charles Xavier has tried his best to struck from all records. He did a pretty good job at it too, I must admit."

Finally, the group was finally composed as a half-circle around the object. Kitty stood next to Kurt and, noticing Jean, gave her a weak smile. Meanwhile, Allerdyce and Jean herself situated themselves next to Tutor, as Sebastian Shaw took center stage, standing infront of the grey mass that towered behind him.

"What you're looking at, my friends, is a metal tomb, weighing some ten thousands tons," he shouted, as he performed in front of the assembled audience. "A very expensive type of metal in fact, known for both its lightweight and nigh-indestructibility." His smile broadened as he stretched out his arms. "So indestructible, in fact, that every task force I've assembled to crack it has failed every time."

"Why is it so important Shaw?" asked Lehnsherr, the sound of the helicopter now a distant echo.

Shaw turned to him, looking utterly exalted, his eyes subliminally lit by the passion of a poker player allowed to finally show his hand. "We tracked this down in the middle of the Adriatic, some four months ago. Based on the ocean gunge that clung to it, we reckon it sat down there for nearly three years. Did I mention its entirely solid, by the way? No wriggle room inside. Whatever it is, its the result of some deal struck between MI6 and the Russian SVR, one that Charles Xavier was seemingly _heavily_ involved in."

_Three years ago_, thought Jean. _Around the time Charles got the Sentinel Initiative off the ground. _She shot a glance at Allerdyce. He stood watching not Shaw, but the obelisk intently. Having spent much time with the man, Jean knew why he was smiling. No matter how this went, Allerdyce knew the results would be pure drama.

"Now," Shaw continued, "I must profess I had an active interest in our very own Miss Pryde even before Cherkavi. I aplogise for my duplicity, but you must understand that my interest in enabling you to aid her was not merely influenced by that fact."

Jean felt her thoughts flying rapidly. _Interest in Kitty? Before Cherkavi?_ _Why?_

"Oh," she whispered out-loud.

The answer was so obvious.

* * *

"P-Please," the young nurse begged in French, as he held the gun to her face and held her against the wall "I don't want to die, I'm getting married in June!" As he held her body against the wall, the man couldn't help but notice her firm breasts, or the fact that urine was dripping from her skirt. "I'm begging you, I-"

"What's your fiance's name?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

She was momentariliy silent, as if digesting his question. "Jaime," she replied after some time. "Jaime Levroux." After he had pulled the trigger, he searched through her pockets and found his target; a security card. He ran his hand over the ruined surface of his face, letting the nurse's body slump back down the wall, as he wiped the blood from his eyes. He turned, as he heard the door to the room open.

"So, how's our mysterious patient toda-"

The doctor didn't have time to finish his question, as the man fired two shots into his abdomen, then a final one into his head. He pulled the body away from the door and slumped it over the nurse's, before scanning his eyes across the room. On the chair beside his bed the man found his target; a fresh pair of patient robes. Blood free.

He pulled the new robe over him, and looked at the clock; he had maybe ten minutes to get to the security room to erase the tapes before the police arrived. He had maybe three bullets left and started calculating; maybe one security guard at the screens, one bullet. Two to spare, if things went awry. He checked the doctors pockets and found enough for a cab to the private airport listed on the note left by Nettle. Putting his hand into his chest to hide his gun, the man left the room.

* * *

"W-Why?" stammered Kitty, her arms wrapped round her chest as she took a few steps back. "Why me?"

Jean noticed Kurt take a step towards Kitty, as if readying himself to get between her and Shaw. She looked towards Tutor, and saw that he had arrived at the same conclusion. It was Allerdyce who punctured the silence.

"He wants you to go inside it, Kitty," he said, still smiling broadly. "Charles Xavier has hidden his dirty secret inside, and Shaw wants you to get it out."

What followed was chaos, as both Lehnsherr and Kurt shouted towards Shaw. Kurt was now positioned perfectly between the businessman and Kitty, one arm outstretched. Tutor had taken a more diplomatic position, having walked to Shaw's side, yet unknowingly bellowed his sentences into the man's ears. Allerdyce stood their smiling, as if waiting to see the puzzle solve itself. This all continued for what seemed like a momentary eternity, until a new shout was raised.

"I'll do it," said Kitty Pryde, as she made her way past Kurt.

"Kitty," said Lehnsherr.

"Thank you," replied Shaw.

A moment of silence followed, as all eyes settled on Kitty. "It's only right, you know?" she began. "He's half the reason I'm still here. Sebastian helped me out, for whatever reason, so I can only return the favour."

Another awkward silence followed, broken finally by Tutor. "If you're sure about this Kitty, then we can all only thank you."

She nodded, before taking her place aside the obelisk. She placed a hand against its surface; smooth. Flawless. Sebastian Shaw came up next to her, and placed a hand gently on her arm.

"I'd be right in thinking they trained you for stuff like this," he said. "Back at the Fields, I mean."

She nodded.

"We don't have to do this now," Shaw continued. "If you want some time to..." he trailed off, as Kitty placed her arm through the surface of the husk. Taking a step forward, she raised her other arm and

A scream.

All eyes on Kitty, but she just turns around equally startled, her arm still in the obelisk.

"HE'S DYING," screams Jean. She collapses to her knees and, holding her head between her hands, continues to shriek. "HE'S INSIDE AND HE'S SUFFOCATING."

A flash of movement. Allerdyce glances at Kitty, but there's no Kitty. For a moment there's nothing but the obelisk, but then a leg emerges, then a torso and arm, but Allerdyce counts too many legs and arms for just one Kitty.

Kitty was there. She falls to the ground.

Something else falls to the ground.

Allerdyce counts two legs, two arms.

Jean finishes screaming, collapsing into a heap. Kurt runs to her side. He desperately tries to clear away the foam that errupts from her mouth.

Lehnsherr has his arm around Kitty, asking if she's ok. But his gaze isn't on Kitty or Jean, but on the naked body that lies in front of them all. At its side is Allerdyce, checking its pulse. Neck first, then arm. He lowers his head to the mouth, his ear to the mouth.

"No breathing," he announces. "Dead."

Sobbing from Kitty. Jean's fit dies down.

"What the _fuck_ is going on Shaw?" yells Lehnsherr, but its the corpse that answers, coughing violently. Allerdyce falls onto his back.

The man known as Tutor focuses on the corpses face, as it continues desperately gasping for air.

He knows the face. He knows the face well.

_Charles_, he thought. _In the name of God, what have you done?_

* * *

End of Part Two


	14. Part Three - A Chart of Characters

X-Men: The Beautiful Ones

Character Chart

* * *

**Tutor's Group;** A small group of outcast mutants, lead by ex-KGB agent Eric Lehnsherr, better known as _The Tutor_. Considered a terrorist-cell by the British Secret Services.

Erik Lehnsherr (59, Mutant); A German mutant, possessing magnetic mastery. A former KGB agent and double-agent for MI6. A former friend and partner to Charles Xavier until Xavier's willingness to cooperate with the British government drove a wedge between them. Distancing himself from Xavier, Lehnsherr sought out other mutants to aid him in his quest to subvert the any government body that he perceived as adopting anti-mutant measures, whilst attaining financial support from the enigmatic Sebastian Shaw. Former MI6 codename; THE TUTOR.

Piotr Nikolaievitch (57, Mutant); A Russian mutant, capable of transforming his organic structure into a steel. A former KGB agent and close friend of Erik Lehnsherr.

Jean Grey (21, Mutant); A British mutant, possessing both telepathy and telekinesis. Wanted by the Secret Services for acts of state terrorism. Rescued from a state institution as a teenage, Jean is a former friend and ally of Charles Xavier and Patrick Summers.

John Allerdyce (26, Mutant); A French mutant, possessing the psionic ability to manipulate flames. Wanted by the Secret Services for acts of state terrorism.

Kurt Wagner (20, Mutant); A German mutant, capable of short-range teleportation. Currently unknown to the Secret Services. Recruited for Erik Lehnsherr by Piotr Nikolaievitch.

[Undisclosed] (46, Unknown); An Irishman. Currently serving as a medical expert to Tutor's group.

Elizabeth Cummings (26, Mutant); A British mutant, possessing arthropodic physicality. A former teaching trainee.

* * *

**MI8/Strawberry Fields;** A sub-division of the British Secret Services, funded by both the British government and Charles Xavier. Founded initially to prevent mutant hate crime and illegal acts of mutantcy, the department focus has been redirected primarily towards combating mutant terrorism by its director, Nicholas Fury.

Charles Xavier (61, Mutant); A British mutant, possessing advanced telepathic abilities. A former agent for MI6. Formed a close friendship with Erik Lehnsherr through their joint-missions during the Cold War. Initially the private financier of Strawberry Fields and the SENTINEL Initiative, whilst also running several support programs for young mutants, including a private academy for mutant students. Former MI6 codename; THE PROFESSOR.

Nicholas Fury (34, Human); The acting director of Strawberry Fields, possessing a vast history of military honors. A bullet wound suffered during his military service has blessed him with immunity to all-known forms of telepathy.

Miranda Nettle (31, Mutant); A British mutant, capable of mental manipulation through verbal stimuli. An acting handler and officer for the SENTINEL Initiative.

Adam Baldwin (28, Human); The acting technical supervisor for Strawberry Fields.

Emily Frost (27, Human); An Oxford graduate, recently employed as an adviser to Strawberry Fields, holding first-class honors in Psychology, Law and Mutant Studies. A uprising figure in mutant rights and legislation. Leader of the Frost Foundation, a privately owned organisation dedicated to mutant advocacy.

Moira MacTaggert (27, Human); An acting handler and officer for the SENTINEL Initiative.

* * *

The SENTINEL Initiative; a task-force engineered and managed by Strawberry Fields, consisting of numerous mutant agents. Purposed to represent the department on an international level, working closely with MI6.

Ororo Munroe (32, Mutant); An Afro-British mutant, capable of thermal manipulation. SI codename; STORM.

Robert Drake (19, Mutant); A Welsh mutant, capable decreasing the temparature of water vapor to below zero degrees Celsius. A former student of Xavier's mutant academy. SI codename; ICEMAN.

Al Freyd (34, Mutant); An Arabic-British mutant, capable of theropoda manipulation. SI codename HITCHCOCK.

* * *

**Other;**

Patrick "Scotty" Summers (39, Mutant); A Scottish mutant, capable of emitting thermal energy from his eyes. Former lover of Jean Grey, the resulting affair costing him his marriage to his wife, Madelyn Pryor. Former task manager of the SENTINEL Initiative. Fired from Strawberry Fields in the aftermath of an operation in Cherkavi, Russia. Former SI codename; CYCLOPS_._

Katherine Pryde (17, Mutant); A British mutant, capable of passing through solid matter. A former member of the SENTINEL Initiative, recruited by Patrick Summers. After being abducted by John Allerdyce and Jean Grey, Pryde found herself at the mercy of an unknown assassin, only to be saved by the efforts of Lehnsherr, Wagner and Sebastian Shaw. Former SI codename; SHADOWCAT.

Warren Worth (32, Mutant); a British mutant, possessing organic wings. A former British serviceman, now acting chef at a pub in South Kensington.

Sebastian Shaw (45, Human); Successful businessman and near-billionaire. CEO of arms-manufacturer _Shaw Industries_. Has recently revealed himself as the enigmatic financier of Lehnsherr's group.

[Undisclosed] (Mid to Late Twenties, Mutant); an unclassified mutant employed by Miranda Nettle to assassinate Katherine Pryde. Significantly injured by Kurt Wagner and Erik Lehnsherr, resulting in partial facial scarring.

[Undisclosed] ([?], Mutant); A young girl obtained by Jean Grey and John Allerdyce from a rogue department of the Russian military, dedicated to experimental warfare. Name and background unknown. Exhibits a peculiar touch-based mutation. Classified in documents as WEAPON-X.

The Wolverine ([?], Mutant); An infamous mutant, possessing rapid healing and an adamantium-constructed skeleton. A legendary mutant assassin and mass-murderer. Assumed dead since the early 90s. A corpse fitting his description was found within an adamantium block discovered in the Adriatic Ocean by Katherine Pryde.


	15. Part Three - Chapter One

"More tea?" she asked, as she lifted the antique china pot. Jean ignorned the question and instead tried to focus on the room. The light that bounced off the white walls burned her eyes, so she turned her attention to the equally white floor. The two women sat a low table in the middle of the otherwise empty room, each with their legs crossed. Lowering her hand to the floor, Jean touched it with each of her fingertips. It _felt_ like wood. It _felt_ warm.

"You can't keep ignoring me forever Jean," said Frost, as she lowered the china pot to her own teacup. "Sooner or later you'll have to see the sense of it all." Frost paused, lowering the sprout to Jean's teacup. _The sense of it all? _There's no sense here_, _thought Jean. There's no sense at all. "Sooner or later," Frost continued, "you'll have to see your current situation for what it is."

Each wall had the same golden symbol at its center. She trade to focus on one such symbol, but the bright glare of the walls forced her again to look away.

_This isn't real_.

Jean tried to remind herself of that fact, as she picked up her teacup.

_None of this is real_.

Jean brought the teacup to her lips and, taking a sip, winced in pain.

"You honestly see yourself as noble," Jean finally said, as she lowered the boiling hot tea back onto the table. "_Don't you_? Everyone you've had killed. Each of my_ friends_ you've had killed. You honestly believe it's all for some greater good." As she spoke, Jean locked her eyes onto Frost's. She watched Frost carefully, searching for any change on her face. Frost merely starred back and Jean, for the first time, noticed the color of her eyes. _Ice_, she thought. _There's nothing inside her but ice._

* * *

Chapter One

"_I weave for you,_

_The marvelous web..._

_And they will assist us,_

_'Cause we're asking for help."_

Bjork, _All Neon Like_

* * *

Warren Worth made his way into his apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights.

The wings _burned_.

Slaming the door shut, he hastily tore off his t-shirt, hearing it rip at the seams as he pulled it over his head. He groped manicaly with the binds he tied around his back and, as he let them fall to the floor, his wings unfolded, sending a glass on the side to the floor. The burning seemed to subside at the sound of the glass shattering, but the remaining pain made him reach for a second glass and fill it up under the tap, pouring it down his bare back in an effort to cool the sensation.

_It _wants out, Worth thought. He might be going crazy, but he was certain that it was a sign that the entity that, that _might_, be sharing his wanted release. Worth could almost hear Its whispers, the same ones he had begun to always hear around this time of the evening. The entity spoke clearly, honestly. Y_ou're wasting the gift I've given you, _It said.

Worth knew better than to listen. He knew better than no validate the whispers. He had seen madness before, seen former friends from service fall to PTSD and all its misshapen cousins. He knew that crazy people can't see their own insanity. That knowledge gave him hope. For now, he had the advantage of knowing he was going insane.

He had thought of looking for help. A specialist? A therapist? He knew better than that. There was no fathomable way he could talk about the voice without mentioning the wings. Without having to sign the mutant registry. Then he'd have to start worrying about the government too. That left very few options open to him. Family? He had none. A close-friend? He hadn't made any yet in London.

Annette?

No. He couldn't ask Annette. He liked her too much to risk it. They had already gone on a couple of dates now, since meeting at the tattoo parlor. He wasn't going to risk scaring her off.

The rain continued outside. He fell onto the sofa, collapsing on his front, his right wing settling against its back. He searched through the darkness and found the television remote on the floor. The darkness fell back slightly against the small eruption of dim light from the television. He focused on the images on it, instead of the voice whispering to him. The sound of rain echoed outside.

"Crazy people don't know they're crazy," he said into the cushion. "I just need to remember that I'm going crazy."

* * *

From the window of the mansion's parlor, Jean watched the rain fall. From somewhere in the mansion, she could hear it landing on hard, bare flooring. The sound echoed through the mansion, through each deserted room and dark corridor. Aside from the single lantern they had brought from the celler, not a single light shone in the entire building.

Behind her, the four men continued their conversation. Eric, Shaw and Niklovitch were quizing the good doctor, each one scattered around the room with their backs against the wall. Only Shaw sat, sitting backwards with his arms round the back of some rotting antique chair. He had remained silent for sometime now, letting the doctor continue his report.

"So in that regard, the girl is generally in good, physical health," said the Irish man, before pausing to take a glug of his drink. "_Perfect_, you could almost say. Whatever reason those savages had, giving the poor thing a nutrious diet was definetly a priority for them."

"What about head-wise, then?" asked Niklovitch, his thick Russian accent perfuming each word. "Even I can tell the girl's a headcase." That final comment made Jean cringe, images of the institution flashing before her eyes. She turned back around, reentering the conversation.

"Let's have you experimented on for a few year, big guy," she said, eyeing the Russian colossus. "See how well you are _head-wise_ afterwards." As he turned to glare at her, Jean knew full well what his unspoken, misogynistic response was going to be.

"There, not so perfect," the doctor said, leaving Niklovitch's response still unspoken. He drew a cigarette from his coat pocket and, after lighting it, continued. "The girl doesn't have any _concise_ memories of her imprisonment, nor of any kind of procedure they may have performed on her. In fact, she has very few memories at all. None at all of her life before her imprisonment, if she even had one." He took a drag of his cigerette and, holding it between his fingers, watched the smoke slowly rise from its tip. "She lacks an identity. In some way, that's probably the reason she's survived."

"How so?" asked Shaw, the first question he had asked in nearly half an hour.

"Well, it's just the way I see it," said the doctor, taking the time to speak with more care than before, "But her lack of an actual _self_, as _we_ could perceive it, probably made the barbaric shit they threw at her more bearable. More _impersonal, _you might say." He threw his cigerrette to the floor. "Poor thing."

_"_So she really has nothing?" asked Jean, crossing her arms as she rejoined the circle. "No name, no memories?"

The doctor merely shook his head. "None of her _own, _by any rate. Her mutantcy allows her to absorb the memories of anyone who makes direct skin contact with her, whilst causing the recipient immense pain as the transaction takes place. I also have a theory that she leaves a little of herself in the recipient too." He paused and Jean once more noticed as he choose his next words carefully. "That, in my opinion, could possibly explain the experiments they were conducting on her."

This time, no one offered the implied question. After a few short moments of silence, he continued.

"See, her _power_, as you folks term it, also allows her to adapt her own genetic makeup to incomperate that of the recipitent. In a way, she's like play-dough. If she maintains prolonged contact with another mutant, her genetic structure remolds itself in such a way that it develops the other person's mutation. That, however, is something everyone in this room was already aware of. But based on the tests I ran on her when you brought her back from Cherkavi, I have at least a hunch that the Russians were getting very, _very_ ambitious with their little Weapon-X."

He paused for a moment, before reaching into his coat pocket for another cigarette. "Based on my findings," he continued, having lit his smoke, "I feel _relatively_ safe to hypothesize that the Russians were trying to find a way to make it a two-way process. More precisely, trying to find a way to allow her to actually manipulate the makeup of the recipitent."

He fell silent once more, allowing his words to hang in the air. In the silence, Jean noticed that the sound of rain had ceased.

"Therefor, it may well be the case that the aim of the Weapon-X project was to develop a means to transfer mutations. To perhaps cure a person of their mutation, or possibly even _weaponize_ them."

* * *

"Shut it John," shouted Kurt. "No one's digging the whole hippy-born-to-the-wrong-generation act." The comment made Kitty laugh, bringing her hands to her mouth as she sprayed the beer she had just sipped.

"Damn, Kitty," Allerdyce shouted from across the table, "That was some decent Bières de Noël you just wasted." Kitty made to apologise, before noticing the smile on Allerdyce's face. He continued to unnerve her slightly - a fact she partially attributed to being kidnapped by him - yet she felt herself slowly warming to the man. She remembered the long car journey she had spent blindfolded and paralyzed in the back of their van, as well as the constant bickering between him and Jean. She felt oddly happy that the memory now only brought a smile to her face.

"Anyway," Allerdyce continued, "Bowie's a lyrical genius. You youth shouldn't underestimate the genius of the man." He looked to Kitty, giving her a short wink.

The door opened and Jean walked in. As she sat down at the wooden table, on which was scattered playing cards and numerous beer bottles, Allerdyce handed her one of his french lagers. "Tough time with the big boys, Jean-Genie?" he asked, pushing himself and his chair back against the wall.

"I guess you could say that," Jean said, as she glanced around the room. As her eyes crossed Allerdyce, Kurt, Elizabeth and herself, Kitty thought she noticed a short smile form on Jean's face. That thought was cut short, however, as she felt Elizabeth's tail brush against her shoulder.

"Sorry," said Elizabeth, having noticed Kitty cringe. "Sometimes its just moves on its own." A blush spread itself across the the woman's.

"Don't worry about," said Kitty with a smile, before deciding not to mention her slight phobia of scorpions, in fear of offending.

"So what's the news?" Kurt asked, leaning on the table. "Has Charles Xavier really turned against his own kind?" Kitty notice a grimace form on Jean's face, as Allerdyce spoke up.

"That can all wait till morning, Kurt," he said, pausing for a moment to take a glug of his own drink. "Don't forget, you scary monsters and super creeps, tonight's we're celebrating the newest addition to our little freak show." He cut a glance towards Kitty and she found herself smiling once more.

* * *

_Newford. Weapon-X. Frost._

Even after his attempts to distract himself, those thoughts still crossed Summers's mind as he sat watching TV, whisky in hand. _Xavier, Fury; Frost. _He had changed the channel some time ago, after Panorama had proudly announced a _Mutant Special_.

_Shaw Industies. Stark._

_Newford._

On that thought the doorbell rang. Leaving the television on, he went to answer it and found Munroe at the door, soaked to the bone.

"I really had to track you down," she said, as she strode through the door and past him. "You could've mentioned you moved."

"The conversation didn't really come up," he said, closing the front door. He wondered if he had deliberately chosen not to mention it, imaging that most people would feel embarassed about downgrading from a three-bedroom to a council flat after being uncerimonly fired. Munroe made her way through the flat, as if inspecting each corner, and Summers could only follow her past the kitchen counter and to what he considered the 'front room'; a piece of carpet past the breakfast bar, on it a small sofa in front of a portable television. He had sold the widescreen, of course. He couldn't fit it into the room.

Munroe stopped at the side of the television, her arms folded. She stood staring at the television for some time without speaking, so Summers went into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of rum he had kept around for some years now, remembering Munroe's choice of drink. In fact, he was pretty sure Munroe was the reason it had already been opened at some point. That was the one thing the flat did have going for it; plenty of space for drink. He poured two glasses worth and watered Munroe's with some coke, leaving both bottles on the breakfast counter.

"You know," Munroe began, "you know you're a fucking cliche, Scotty?" She paused for a moment, still watching the screen. "Literally, obsessing over that one case you just _can't _crack, drinking yourself into an early kidney failure. You're not some fucking comic-book character, y'know?" Summer's watched from the sofa as she pulled a carton of cigarettes out of her pocket, fished one out and lit it between her lips. "And look at me," she continued, indicating towards the cigerette. "What fucking cliche am _I _right now?"

Summers choose not to say anything, a decision he decided would be the most tactful at that moment. Munroe began walking back and forth across the room, one arm propped holding the cigarette, the other stretched across her breasts, the hand clenched under her armpit.

"Scotty, you know I don't scare easy, and I'm fucking _terrified_ right now," said Monroe, pacing back and forth in front of him. "A murder squad, Scotty, they've hired a fucking _murder squad_. It's hidden between the lines but, _fuck_, they've hired a small army for some goddamn reason." He didn't respond to that piece of information and, instead, waited for Munroe to spill more. She made another lap in front of him, occasionally stopping to flick the ash off the end of her smoke. "And Newford? Still no details on paper, but whatever it is they're wrapping it up, Scotty. They're burning all mentions of it already." She paused on the spot in front of him and took the cigarette butt from between her lips, before crushing it into the carpet with the back of her heel. "And the most _hilarious_ thing, Scotty?" she said, after a short pause. "They got the mercenaries through the same channels fucking _Stark Industries_ uses."

She crossed her arms and gazed at him, a habit of hers that Summers had noticed before. _Waiting for a response_, he thought. _Waiting for validation_. He didn't have either to offer. Instead, he lifted himself out of his seat and to the breakfast bar, pouring the same round for both of them again.

"Did you come here out of nowhere just to rant?" asked Summers, as he took a generous swig of his drink. He could see the room beyond the breakfast bar vibrate outside his peripheral vision, drawing lurid circles around itself. "What exactly do you want from _me_?"

Munroe made her way beside him, bending down against the breakfast bar to reach her drink. Bringing it to her mouth, she started and finished it with a single gulp. With one hand, she turned him around to face her.

"I think it's pretty fucking _obvious_ what I want, Scotty" she said, as she unzipped her leather jacket, revealing nothing under it.

She pressed herself against him until his waist hit the breakfast bar, and wrapped her hands slowly round his neck.

* * *

Smell

(iron)

a

smell (METALLIC)

His heart races, hands reaching for his throat as it starts, it

(metallic)

started again.

But it didn't. Not this time. His heart pounds in his chest.

There was a smell, yes. But it wasn't the ocean and it wasn't his coffin.

He opened his eyes and the light stung him. It was a low light, from a desk lamp, but it stung him nonetheless.

He falls to the floor, (thud)

[too much noise]

and leapt to his feet, balancing himself with one hand on the floor.

He glanced around the room.

Army grade? He had seen the room before. A medic chamber. The kind one found in a certain sort of military bunker. A military bunker sold to typically to third world clients and factions, militias and rebellions. Cheap, easily deployable. Army grade.

Underground.

(stark)

He was underground.

(stark sells these)

He could remember the layout of the bunker perfectly. couldn't remember the job or who he killed. maybe afghanistan. he couldn't remember the job but he could remember the layout of the bunker perfectly.

he could smell. he breathed in through his nostrils, ecstatic. he could smell again. not just (metallic) the coffin and the ocean.

_he could smell people._

he made his way through the bunker. a part of him, an _old_ part of him, shouted at him to follow the smell. to make the people it belonged to _hurt_ until they gave him answers. but he now knew better than that. knew better than that now. all he should and _did_ care about was getting away, _escaping_, before they put him back into his coffin. back into the water. he'd escape and find somewhere to hide. dig himself a little hole and _never _be_ found _again.

he made his way out of the bunker (just like afghan) and found himself in what seemed to be a house. a _large_ house. he stopped to think but thought better of it. he couldn't waste time thinking. not if it meant getting away from the coffin. he made his way to the porch and (IDIOT) noticed a new smell (_idiot)_ and a person waiting for him and realised he shouldn't of thought but he _should've _smelt and he was going back to the coffin, the sensation at this hands letting away at that thought alone, readying himself to kill, _to tear apart_ the person who wanted to put him back into the coffin and

"Logan?"

the claws retracted. it took him a moment to recognise the sound. the sound was _talk_. in that second, he remembered the sound of voices.

* * *

Jean looked at the man in front of her, soaking in the sight. Her memories of the man hadn't come back at the ferry and now, seeing him awake, they rushed back. His animistic glare. _The smell of his foul cigars._ The sensation of her body under his.

"J-Jean?" the man said. _The sound of his voice. _

But at the same time, she could already tell it wasn't the same man.

"It's alright Logan," she said, her voice calm and soothing. "No one's going to hurt you."

She had pretended to administer him the tranqualiser an hour ago, before Allerdyce had bid her goodnight and went off to shag Elizabeth. Waiting for him to awake, she had spent the last hour and a half outside underneath the porch, practically chain-smoking. She didn't trust him to not hurt anyone, but she had trusted him to notice her scent. Clearly, however, she had assumed wrong.

The naked man went as if to say something, his mouth agape, and Jean couldn't help but notice how pathetic he looked. Finally, he closed his mouth, instead pushing her aside as he rushed outside. She thought of a wall and the man cried in pain, falling back on his back. He crawled backwards and rolled onto his other side, his back against the invisible wall, terror shaping his face.

"Please Jean," he wheezed out. "Not again, not the _coffin_."

"Relax, Logan," she whispered. "Everything's fine. I'm your friend, remember?" They _had_ been friends. In fact, long ago, she spent many hours lying to Patrick "Scotty" Summers that they weren't anything _but_ friends. Yet this fact did little to calm the man in front of her, who now clasped his hands together as if in prayer.

"Please Jean," he begged. "Please."

"Who did this to you, Logan?" she asked, one hand pointed towards him to keep the wall in place. Confusion momentarily crossed his face before he seemed to understand the question.

"X-Xavier, Charles Xavier," the man said. "He put me into the coffin. Please Jean, _please, _don't _put_ me _back_."

_Xavier. _Jean's mind went numb for a moment, and that was all it took for the wall to disappear. The man leapt into his feet and then into the night, vanishing from view before she had fully noticed. But Jean didn't care. There was once a mutant the world fearfully called the Wolverine; a man she had known as Logan. Both the world and herself thought him long dead. She knew now that was indeed the case. She stood there for sometime, watching the dark waves of the ocean from the mansion's porch, before turning to the door. She stopped, however, as she noticed something white flicker past her eyes, and land on her shoulder.

* * *

Summers gasped, hurling himself up in the bed.

Beside him, Munroe stirred, bringing back his memories of the evening. "You ok?" she asked, turning to look at him as she ran her hand over his chest. "Scotty?"

"Yeah," he said, but his heart still raced. He couldn't remember what had caused him to wake up in a cold sweat but, as she ran her finger around his breast and moved to embrace him, Summers found himself surprisingly calmed. "Nightmare, I guess." She offered him a smile, before rolling herself sideways against his chest. After some hesitation, Summers put an arm around her.

"Christ, you really are a mess, huh?" said Munroe, with a toying smile. "Our little thing tonight got you on edge?"

_Our little thing_. When was the last time he had had a _thing_? Not since Madelyn left him, maybe. And certainly not since Jean. He felt a strange obligation to say something, to keep the conversation going but, flexing his spare hand, found nothing within his reach. So for some time they simply laid there; Summers with his arm around Munroe, as she gently nuzzled against him. Scotty was taken aback at the little shows of affection she made and found that, to some extent, he was appreciating them.

"Look," Munroe said, just as Summers had began to drift off again. "It's snowing."

He turned his head to the window. Outside, the orange glow of a streetlight was being interrupted by the steady fall of snow.


	16. Part Three - Chapter Two

Chapter 2

"_It doesn't make no sense, no._

_It's not convenient, no._

_It doesn't fit my plans but I've got that taste in my mouth again, oh._"

Pulp, _F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E_

* * *

By the time he had awoke, Munroe had already gone. No note or sign that she had even been there. Summers made his way to the kitchen area and began making himself a coffee. This was the game they had played for nearly a week now, after the snow had first started falling. She had been serious about quitting the fields but, as always, resignations take some time. The paperwork had to be handled, suitable adjustments made; the hole Munroe would leave behind had to be filled before she could even dig it. So, for the last week or so, Munroe would leave early for work. A couple of times Summers had been fortunate enough to wake up just as she was getting ready, giving him the chance to wish her a good day. Others, she had just let him sleep on.

As he drunk his coffee, Summers eyed an article about the newest London myth; the angel of South Kensington. Summers checked what paper had been delivered before continuing the article. However, eyewitness reports, police investigations; this all striked Summers as a little bit more than just a slow news day. A mugging interrupted, a gang of cocaine dealers trashed and left outside Kensington police station; the common link were sightings of a similar man at each location. A man with bright white wings.

Summers put the paper down and checked the time. Twelve o'clock, the earliest he had been awake in weeks. He decided in that moment to do something with his day, to make some progress towards getting back on his feet. He finished his coffee and took a shower.

He had sent his CV off to a few companies now. Big companies, the kind a few years in the service _might_ be able to open up for him. That was all at Munroe's request, of course. It was part of their game. Mostly unacknowledged, of course, but it was still being played regardless. She would resign from the fields while he looked for a new job and, although neither had yet to voice the fact, she had already began to move in some of her stuff. Not that Scott minded, however. It was merely essentials. A change of clothes, toothbrush, iron; the stuff she needed when she slept over with work the next day. Nothing that Summers would have considered unfair; she _had_ slept over every night since the snowfall had started, something Summers _certainly_ didn't mind.

* * *

They had stopped at a patrol station to refuel and, while Nikolaievitcth waited in line to pay, Kitty stood outside with Lehnsherr, both having left the truck for some air. Neither one of them had spoken as they stood leaning against the vehicle, watching the snow gently fall on the street across them. The journey so far had been almost entirely silent, each of them seemingly absorbed in their own private thoughts. Several times over the last two hours it occurred to Kitty to request turning on the radio, but decided against it each time. Neither did she have the nerve to mention the tape she had brought with her.

"You know," said Lehnsherr suddenly, as he continued to look out towards the falling snow. "You know, I'm quite the hypocrite really." Kitty looked at him, once more noticing the same weary look he had worn all that day. Kitty didn't quite know how to respond, however, and waited for him to continue. "Children your age shouldn't be forced into this position, or something along those lines anyway. _That's_ what I said. When I first met you." He paused again, his brow lowering as he looked towards the road. "And yet here we are, and I'm doing the exact thing I faulted _him_ for."

"It's different, though," said Kitty, "Here, I mean." She paused, carefully following the lines of what she wanted to say in her mind, drawing the web she wanted to present to him. "You've given me all the information I need to make an educated decision. You've told me the risks. You let me make the decision for myself. Xavier," she said, before pausing once more. _Xavier would've just told me want I wanted to hear, _she had been about to say. "You said before that you think that Xavier just gives people false assurances."

"But how do I know I haven't done just _that_," said Lehnsherr, turning his gaze to her. "How do I know I'm not just covering my eyes, so that they don't see the real danger standing in front of them?"

Kitty couldn't think of an answer. Lehnsherr turned his head back to watch the snow and, for some time, they stood in silence once more.

"I brought," began Kitty, pausing for a short moment, "I brought a mixtape with me, by the way. Probably not stuff you and Nik would like, but some of its pretty good. I think, anyway."

Eric didn't reply at first, his gaze remaining on the road. For split second Kitty thought she saw his brow grow heavy again. However, within a second he had turned to face her and, with a pleasant smile, placed a hand of on her shoulder. "I think music is a good idea, Kitty," he said. "Truth be told, I would take any tape of _yours_ over one of _Piotr's_."

* * *

"I think I'll be late tonight," said Munroe into his ear. "Fury's just wasting Charles's time right now, keeping him floating at the Fields."

Summers took his eyes off the television and glanced towards the phone, holding the black receiver to his ear. "How's he doing that? Holding him up, I mean."

"Just by being a no-show, I guess," said Munroe's voice. "They were suppose to have a meeting an hour and a half ago. He sent a message through Nettle saying that he's been delayed, but that Charles shouldn't leave. It's an absolute mess over here Scotty. They messed up the weekly report too. Only a handful got their classification for it. Me and Charles are waiting for MacTaggert to sort out ours."

The weekly report; he hadn't realized it was Friday already. "Who's got access?"

"Pardon?" said Munroe. "Oh, only Fury at the moment. And Frost I guess, as she's the current publisher."

"When you get it, can you pass it on?"

The phone went silent for awhile, causing Summer to worry that Munroe had gone. "You know," she finally said, "You've got to let it go, Scotty." Another pause. "Begin again and all that. You don't need to the extra hassle from worrying about this place."

"You're the one who mentioned it, Ororo."

"Yeah, but only 'cause," she said quietly, trailing off. "Well, it's what people do. Unload all about their bad days onto each other."

_That's what people do. _Scotty thought, saying a short goodbye. _People playing the same game as us._

* * *

"We should go," said Jean. They stood outside the mansion, looking out to the sea.

"Go?" asked Allerdyce, giving her a careful look. He had offered to keep Jean company while she smoked and, for once, Jean obliged him. "As in, leave the bunker?"

"They're walking into a trap and they know it. _We _should get somewhere safe. Me, you, Kurt and the other two. Take the girl with us and clean house." She meant Weapon-X_. The girl people have already been killed over_, Jean thought.

Allerdyce gave her a dubious look. "That's the plan, isn't it? If they're not back by midnight we make our way to the _safe house_." A smile formed on his face yet Jean thought that it seemed to lacked its normal confidence; its normal _spark_. It seemed to Jean as if it was more _streched_ than normal. "You're not getting panicky on me are you, Jeanie-Baby?"

* * *

_Let it go_.

It had been a little more than two hours since he had hung up on Munroe. Summers had walked down the street for awhile, taking in the sight of the snow covered cars and windows. The snow had barely slowed during that last week, as December approached faster with each passing day. Some houses had even put up their Christmas lights already. But Summers didn't see the snow in quite such a festive a light.

(begin again)

He could, you know? He _could_ just let it go. That's what he thought as he entered a small off-license. By the time he had made his way back to the flat and let himself in, Summers carried several newspapers under his arms and his lunch under his other, a carefully wrapped bundle of chips and battered cod. As he ate at the breakfast bar, a ketchup and vinegar bottle in front of him, Summers read through each article. _The Kensington Angel. _That was The Guardian's lead. _Miracle in Kensington? _asked the News of the World.

No, not a miracle. Summers knew it was a mutant.

_Just a man with wings._

Someone had to get into contact with him. Whoever he was, clearly he wasn't clued into how things worked. The police were already making investigations. Someone in the force would soon realise the Angel of Kensington was real. Not an angel, of course. _Just a man with wings._ Then, they'd bring in the specialists to track him down. Maybe it'd even make its way up to the _Fields_. Scotty knew someone had to clue him in.

It wasn't quite a revelation, just the result of a few loose ends finally touching. He had something he could do. Non-profit, of course, but still something. He'd have to get a salary-paying job on the side, or perhaps even ask Charles to fund him, but it was still achievable. Make something to help people like the Kensington Angel. To help would-be Kitty Prydes. To clue them in before _they_ got them. Not quite a support group but - _actually - _yes. Something quite like one. A group dedicated to finding other mutants before they were found. A group dedicated to finding mutants and teaching them how to hide. To dodge the registration.

He didn't have to just say goodbye to it all. He just had to let Strawberry Fields _go_ and begin again. Change the tune, but keep dancing.

A loud pinging sound behind him made him jump. Turning to see the light of the fax machine flash, he watched as a single piece of paper printed out. He picked it up and read it.

_Dear Patrick,_

_Munroe and Xavier are still waiting around for Fury to show, so they asked to get hold of the weekly report while they wait. Munroe also asked me to send it your way. _

_Best regards,_

_M. MacTaggert._

That last line brought a smile to Summers' face. He thought of all the different ways to say "thank you" to Munroe when she got back and smiled all the more for it.

_Begin again_.

Within a few minutes the rest of the document had printed. Summers flipped through the pages, finding nothing out of the norm with the weekly report. Like always, it was divided into three sections; an status report of the department's results that week, next week's evaluation and departmental aims and the usual list of known mutants at large.

Summers took the list to the sofa and, switching on the television, placed the document onto the sofa's spare cushion. He had decided not to bother reading it. Munroe was right; the Fields was becoming an obsession. Besides, the document wouldn't give him any valuable information - the good stuff was always omitted. What he _should_ be doing is trying to track down the winged-man, or at least make a few more phone calls about possible work. Let it go, and just begin again.

He finished the first two sections in just under five minutes. It striked Summers as the usual weekly crap; a few head-ways into smaller scale projects, no more, no less. As always, anything with value had been deliberately left out, forcing the various members of the fifty-person department to once again use their personal connections to stay updated on other sections of the department. Of course, there was no mention of Paris or Kitty Pryde.

Or Newford.

He was interested, however, in the third and final section. There were plenty of people he had wanted to oversee the capture of and wanted to know if the Fields or SENTINELs had made any progress. He quickly browsed the list; four dozen or so names, mostly all suspected to be in the UK. He made his way down the list.

Johnathan Allerdyce. The guy who had hospitalized Drake, he was pretty sure. According to Munroe, the guy reduced the Russian separatists in Cherkavi to ashes. Still no news on his current location.

Callisto, real name unknown. The head of a small mutant-anarchist group. Summers hadn't personally dealt with that project, but apparently the guy was still on the loose.

Next, a name he had prepared himself for; _Jean Grey_. Still at large and highly dangerous. An immediate priority. _Keep running Jean_, Summers thought, as memories of the young woman passed before his eyes. He kept reading.

He sped through the next six or so names.

Zebidiah Killgrave. _The date-rapist_, Summers thought. He was sad to see that he was still on the loose.

A few more names and then Summers stopped. His vision blurred, the words in front of him becoming indecipherable symbols. In his head, voices began repeating half-forgotten snippets of conversation.

_Who's got access?_

_Oh, only Fury at the moment. _

_(_you just got to)

_And Frost I guess._

He reread the name, making sure he was right, before racing down the list. If one was there, then the other

(you've got to let it go scotty_)_

The papers shook between his trembling hands. Yes, she was also there.

They're only kids, Summers thought. Why would they...

_Fury's just wasting Charles' time right now,_

_Keeping him floating at the Fields._

Two names, the same simplistic details on each.

_Wanda Maximoff._ _Dangerous foreign mutant. Currently in containment and being transferred to Strawberry Fields._

_Pietro Maximoff. Dangerous foreign mutant. Currently in containment and being transferred to Strawberry Fields._

_Fury knows full well that there's a mole in Strawberry Fields, _Summers thought, as he raced to the phone and frantically dialed Munroe's office. After it failed to connect, he tried Xavier's. He tried MacTaggert. He tried Drake. No one answered; each line had been disconnected.

Summers raced out of his apartment, forgetting to close the front door.

* * *

Kitty raised her arm to her face, protecting her eyes from the falling dust. To her left, she heard the sound of another loud crash.

"I've blocked the exits," Lehnsherr said in a low voice. Kitty lowered her arm and saw that the main entrance had been been blocked by large chunks of metal, presumably ripped from the walls and ceiling. "We've got maybe a five minute window. If anything goes wrong, get Kitty out of here Piotr."

Lehnsherr began to make his way to one of the staircases that lead to the second floor of the grand hall. Kitty moved to follow, only for Nikolaievitch to grab her by the shoulder and roughly pull her back. Kitty, map in hand, had lead them through the concrete underneath the building, before taking both of the men's hands and moving them up, until they passed through the floor of the grand entrance hall of Strawberry Fields. "Where are you going?" she called out after Lehnsherr.

He turned the side of his face to look at her as he continued walking. Dust continued to pour from the ruined ceiling above them. "I'm just going to have a quiet word with my old friend." He attempted a smile, but Kitty saw it for what it was. Unconvincing.

Fearful.


	17. Part Three - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

_"Was a cold and dark December, f__rom the rooftops I remember,_

_There was snow, white snow._

_Clearly I remember, f__rom the windows they were watching,_

_While we froze, down below."_

Coldplay, _Violet Hill_

* * *

"What was that?" asked Drake, breaking the silence.

Neither one of the three had spoken since the sound of the first crash echoed throughout Strawberry Fields. After the sound of the second explosion, Munroe stole a nervous glance at both Drake and Xavier. Drake stood perfectly still, his eyes wide and staring at the room's open door, and Munroe noticed him shaking ever-so slightly underneath his designer suit. Catching her gaze, Drake returned it for a few seconds, before focusing once more on the open door and the corridor beyond it. Xavier, Munroe noted, was not trembling. Nor did his hands grasp the arms of his wheelchair. He merely sat by the desk, gently holding his hands, his head bowed as if concentrating on the floor.

"I'm not sure," answered Munroe, after some delay. "Sounds like something collapsed downstairs."

"Collapsed? Munroe, it sounds like a fucking _bomb_ went off."

_On form as always Drake,_ Munroe thought; _panicking at the worst possible moment._ She hadn't forgotten Cherkavi just yet. Still, something was wrong. In fact, in hindsight, from the moment they had entered the building that day something had been wrong. There had been barely anyone at the Fields when they first arrived and, as she thought back, Munroe realised that they hadn't seen another soul in the building for maybe an entire half hour. In fact, she decided with growing dread, it struck her as entirely possible that they were the only people in the building.

"I'm going to take a look," she said and, as she was about to open the door, she paused in her tracks. Instead of leaving, she walked towards Drake and reached inside of her suit pocket, pulling out a small handgun from within. "Keep hold of this and stay with Charles," she said, as she handed Drake the gun.

"Won't you need it?" Drake called out after her as she made her way to the door.

"Not especially," she shouted back. As she entered the corridor and moved to close the door behind her, she stole a final glance at Charles Xavier. He remained in the exact position as before, looking down at his feet. _Why does he look so calm?_ she thought, as she brought the handle down and shut the door.

* * *

At the sound of footsteps, Lehnsherr stopped in his tracks. _Well_, he thought, _I can say for certain they're not Charles's_.

He glanced around in all direction and, seeing an open elevator, ran into it. Lifting a hand, Lehnsherr grasped the air; the doors of the elevator slowly sealed. The footsteps continued, until they began to pass by him. In the car Kitty had pleaded with him; she asked him to not harm anyone _unnecessarily_. Although Piotr had huffed, Lehnsherr had indeed promised her that there'd be no unnecessary violence. No unnecessary death. Of course, at the time Lehnsherr assumed that there'd be more people to greet them when they arrived at the Fields, but nevertheless he intended to keep his promise. After what she had just done for them, it was the least he owed her.

The footsteps headed past the elevator doors and down the corridors, before seemingly taking a right. They were likely heading down the stairs he had just climbed. Lehnsherr sighed in relief; even without the promise, he didn't want to hurt someone who just happened to be in the wrong place. He had come here for one person only and, in-regards to his promise to Kitty, Charles Xavier might just be its only exception.

But that depended, of course, on what answers he gave to Lehnsherr's questions.

* * *

"You try to _run_, and I'll _catch_ you," Piotr explained. "You'll stay here, where _I_ can see you, until Tutor gets back." Kitty was barely listening, however, as they stood in the entrance hall of Strawberry Fields. Her focus instead followed the elaborate beams that weaved the glass ceiling of the hall. It towered over her, as high as the building itself, bringing back memories of an old life. A life spent in Strawberry Fields, with Scotty, Drake and Munroe. She remembered the time she finished work and, as she walked down one of the stairwells that lead to the first floor balcony, spotted Drake, Munroe and Hitchcock waiting for her by the entrance. She remembered the smile on Munroe's face as the she read the balloon that Hitchcock held - "Happy Birthday Kitty!". A limo waited outside, organised by Summers to take them to a privately rented room, stocked with a bar and bartender. Summers had met them there and, despite clear discomfort, had managed to bring himself to stay for the evening's length.

Sun had shone through the glass that day, brightly lighting the room. In the present, however, not a single ray of light shone through. Snow covered the entirety of the external side of that immense ceiling.

"I'm surprised to see you here Kitty," said a familiar voice, causing Kitty to shudder. There were several people Kitty hoped not to meet today. The voice belonged to the one of the two she had _most_ hoped to avoid. "And especially surprised to see the company you're keeping."

The voice came from in front of them, between the two staircases. As Kitty lifted her gaze, she found the source. On the second floor landing, at the head of the left staircase, stood Ororo Munroe.

"She's just proved herself loyal to her own people," yelled Piotr. "She's decided to renounce her traitorous ways. She's joined the right side._"_ Kitty glanced to her side, towards Piotr. He stood red-faced, clenching his fists at his side and practically grinding his teeth. "Perhaps it's you, you traitor-_bitch_, that needs a reminder of what loyalty is."

Munroe began to slowly descend the stairs, her legs gracefully sliding against her black skirt as she made each step. "Well, I see Miss Pryde has lost her voice," she shouted towards them. "So I'll ask you, _big man_. What _exactly_ do you think you're doing here?"

Piotr didn't reply and, as she watched the red spread even further across his face, a shiver ran down Kitty's spine. _It's alright_, she tried to tell herself. _Lehnsherr will be back soon_. Yet this brought no calm to her frantic mind. Kitty looked above her once more at the snow that was steadily building against the ceiling. She look for something amongst the snow to settle herself as well.

* * *

Having wheeled himself to the office's window, Xavier pulled back the red velvet curtain and gazed out at the darkening sky. Snow still fell on the London skyline and Xavier remembered the prediction that, if the snow continued as it did, there was every chance of the Thames freezing over within the week. Xavier remembered the last time that had happened; another December, long ago in his youth. He remembered the lady-friend he had walked on the great river with, but time hid her name from him. Xavier had little hope that he'd live long enough to see the Thames freeze over once more. As he waited for his inevitable visitor to arrive, Charles Xavier concluded that some thing truly do occur only once a lifetime.

Placing his hands onto the wheels of his chair, Xavier wheeled himself to a small brown cabinet by the side of the desk. As he approached, he could smell the perfume of its small collection of liqueurs and spirits. He opened it and, bending down, grabbed the best whisky within his reach. When he raised his head again, his eyes were caught by the figure of a man standing within the door. Xavier recognised the peculiar purple helmet he wore; well before he recognised his face.

"I assumed as much," Xavier said, as he placed the whisky down on the desk beside him. "Before anything else, will you at least me join in a drink, dear friend?"

Erik Lehnsherr did not reply.

"So, what is it?" asked Xavier finally, taking his gaze of the man as he poured himself a generous helping of whiskey. "What sin of mine has finally brought you here, Erik?" He glanced back towards Lehnsherr for an answer, whilst taking a bitter swig of his drink. Lehnsherr remained silent however and, as the man in the doorway continued to simply gaze, Xavier wheeled himself around to full face him. "I can only assume that you've been fed some line. Something that truly broke the camel's back in-regards to how you perceive you and I. I wonder, who fed you it?". He lifted the glass to his mouth and, with closed eyes, finished the drink. "Yourself, I would happily bet."

"Wanda", he said. "Petro. Where are my _children_, Xavier?"

Charles's fingers tightened around the empty glass. "Wanda, Petro?" He looked at Lehnsherr, his mouth agape. "What's happened?"

"I'm not in the mood for theater right now Charles, so kindly close your mouth. Yesterday, some time in the evening, one of your little minions finalised an interior report designated for distribution amongst not only the staff of this building, but also the most senior members of both the British secret services and homeland defense. I have been informed that this is a weekly thing and, as normal, it contained a list of recently extracted _rogue mutants_." Lehnsherr paused for a moment, still standing perfectly still in the doorway. "On that list were the names of both my children."

"I swear, Erik," began Xavier, his composure finally and truly broken. "I _swear_, I didn't know. I'm not in control here, there's spiders weaving their webs and making their nests. You know I would-"

"Only two men knew of their location, Charles," Lehnsherr said, his voiced raised. "Only a handful more their existence. Tell me Charles, how did their names enter your weekly report without your prior-knowledge?"

"Erik, I can't imagine how or from whom you obtained that information from. Now can I confirm the validity of it but Erik, my hands are _clean_. Let me help-"

"Just like Logan, Charles?" Lehnsherr's face flushed red. "And the Adriatic? Had he also come to you for _help_? Are your hands clean of _that_ affair, Charles?"

Xavier threw his drink down onto the desk beside him and, lowering his hands to the sides of his wheelchair, raised himself up. "Don't you dare, don't you _dare_ be so self-righteous, Erik, as to hang _that_ over my head. Logan had spent those last few years committing mass murders _en masse. _He whored himself out as a product of war, murder and rape to whoever paid the highest price. He sided himself with the perpetrators of genocide, for god-sake! He knew what he was doing. He knew the risks it brought."

"Don't mask yourself as the noble and tragic hero, Charles. You make a far better Iago than you do Hamlet. You sunk him to the bottom of the Adriatic at the beckoning of your British government. You sold out one of your own former students, one of your _own_, for the sake of your human _masters_. You can't word it any differently."

"Letting the Wolverine run loose risked costing us _everything, _Erik_," _shouted Xavier, lifting himself above the seat of his wheelchair. "Everything we've aspired to achieve, anything either of us could or _would _achieve, he would have undone. He gave them a reason to fear us, Erik. He _gave_ them that." He paused for a second, his eyes not on Lehnsherr but instead on the empty glass that sat on his desk. His gaze began to follow its circular shape in a slow, repeating cycle.

"And yet they still fear us, Charles." Xavier's gaze raced back to his companion. "Even _after_ you stuck your masters' dagger into Logan's back. Your betrayal amounted to _nothing, _apart from showing your capacity to add your own to the pile." For a second, Charles thought he saw Erik stiffen; his eyes momentarily glancing away. "Just like Kitty."

Xavier didn't immediately reply. Instead, he began to straighten the arms that grasped the side of his wheelchair, slowly lowering himself back down.

"The truth, Erik; what do you know of Katherine Pryde?"

* * *

"We should go," whispered Kitty. Something felt wrong. Lehnsherr had been gone for far too long now.

"Go?" said Piotr. "You really are just a little _girl_, aren't you?"

"She's right, you know," called out Munroe, as she began to gracefully descend the stairs. "If you want to get out of here, I'd suggest making your escape _now_. SWAT will no doubt arrive soon. Or do you honestly fancy your chances against a squad of trained professionals, _big guy_?"

Kitty glanced at Piotr Nikolaievitch. He stood facing Munroe and Kitty for the first time noticed his trembling arms. Kitty assumed it was fear causing him to shake.

Piotr glanced at the floor and clenched his hands once more. _This is it_, she thought. _Now that he's scared I'll be able to convince him to go_. Kitty glanced up at Munroe, who was now at the bottom of the stairs. She walked towards the middle of the two staircases, yet her eyes never left Piotr for a moment. "Go," she said. "Now."

A moment of silence. Kitty could hear the snow tapping against the glass ceiling above.

"Do you," said a small voice, "Do you really fear the humans so much? Does the thought of your human master truly terrify you? Have you truly been so domesticated, _traitor?". _Kitty turned again to look at Piotr and her mistake dawned on her almost immediately.It wasn't fear causing Piotr Nikolaievitch to shake, Kitty realised; it was anticipation.

It happened in less than a moment.

Piotr charged at Munroe, pushing Kitty to the floor as she tried to stop him. Kitty glanced up from the floor just in time to see Munroe lower an arm, the sound of crashing glass and an immense gust of wind followed.

Kitty rolled onto her knees as glass shattered beside her. The room had grown ice cold. At the center of the room stood Piotr. No, Kitty realised he wasn't standing. He was marching against the spot, as a massive tempest of snow forced him to a standstill. The snow trailed in from the shattered hole in the glass ceiling and frantically twisted around Nikolaievitch like a vortex.

"Do you know who I _am?!" _yelled the man as he tried to struggle through the torrent of snow. "I am Piotr Nikolaievitch , former spymaster of the KGB!" He fought against the snow, pushing against an entire blizzard with his own might. "Piotr Nikolaievitch, the Russian Colossus!"

A flash of light.

A scream of pain.

Kitty could only shield her eyes.

When she opened them, Kitty looked towards the spot where the thunderbolt had struck. At its center a great mist swelled. In the midst of it, she saw the lifeless body of Piotr Nikolaievitch.

* * *

"You think," Xavier continued, "you think I would send an assassin, some sort of _murderer_, after one of my own _students?__"_

_"_Nothing would surprise me right now, Charles." Lehnsherr had not yet moved from the doorway, his eyes firmly rooted on Xavier. "Recently, with all the jigsaw pieces in place, I have began to see a very different portrait of you. That of a man capable of sacrificing all his pieces to get a single pawn crowned."

"Self-righteousness doesn't suit you Erik," Xavier snarled, as he poured himself another glass of whisky. "So, what about your meddling in Cherkavi? What was your _right_ there, Erik?"

"I doubt anyone's losing sleep over bad blood with Russia, Charles. You know full well how _they_ handle our kind."

"Two injured, Erik," bellowed Xavier. "Two of my students, hospitalised and nearly killed by your men! Your militia nearly killed Munroe and Drake and you, _you _have the nerve to call me the traitor?"

* * *

The smoke began to clear as Kitty got to her feet.

"Kitty," yelled Munroe, her voice causing Kitty to snap to attention. All around them snow fell, flocking through the shattered hole that now marred the ceiling of Strawberry Field's entrance hall. "You've got to run _now_. The humans are no doubt sending their SWAT towards us as we speak."

Kitty took a couple of feet back and, without a second thought, pulled a small handgun from her pocket, given to her by Allerdyce, and aimed it at Munroe. "I'm not leaving," she said, after some pause. "I'm not leaving here until Erik comes down."

"Kitty," began Munroe again. "We can say that they coerced you. _Threatened _you. We can clear your file. Scotty will help, I know he would. I know he _will_. Run now and we'll get in contact with you. I just want to see you safe. Scotty too. We just want to-"

A sound between them interrupted her. Both of the women looked towards the source. Within the smoke, on the very spot the thunder had previously struck.

"Did you really think," echoed a voice throughout that chamber. "Did you really _think_..."

What came next wasn't the sound of a voice, but the sound of footsteps racing towards Munroe. Kitty turned her gun towards the new threat. A man, a man made of absolute still, was racing towards Munroe. Munroe brought down her arm and a great wind blasted past Kitty, forcing her to drop her gun and shield her eyes once more. Before her, a great dragon made of perfect snow wrapped itself around the steel man, constricting around him, until the only sight Kitty could see through the gaps between her arms was once more that great vortex of snow.

The sound of a yell.

The sound of racing footsteps as the torrent of snow collapsed to the floor.

Before Kitty stood Piotr Nikolaievitch, gripping Ororo Munroe by the throat between the three walls between the two staircases.

His skin was now entirely metalic.

"There was nothing more," said Nikolaievitch. "Nothing more I enjoyed during my time at the KGB, then dealing with traitors."

He lifted Munroe up by her neck. Gasping, her shoes dangling several feet above the ground, her hands attempted to fight off his grasp.

"You," he continued, "you're the worst manner of traitor. You betrayed your people, your _kind, _just for safety and a regular loaf of bread."

Kitty screamed out, screamed for him to stop, but it fell on deaf ears.

"What comes next is your own doing." Piotr Nikolaievitch, still gripping Munroe's throat, raised his free hand, his free _steel_ hand, and placed it around Munroe's face.

"This is your _own_ doing."

* * *

Drake had been leaning against the center-wall of the elevator when he heard the crashing boom from somewhere below his current floor. When the elevator finally reached the ground floor, he had raced for the controls and kept the door shut. Through the metal doors he could hear voices, yet was unable to place a single one. _It's safest in here_, he had thought as his heart raced away. _If something is wrong, there's no point throwing myself straight into the fire._

Memories of Cherkavi (_fire_) raced back to him._"You alrighty there, ice-ice-baby?" _The question echoed through Drake's mind. _"Should I turn it down a bit now?". _As he stood listening to that voice from the past, Drake decided it was best to wait it out. There was no point opening the door to a possible unknown threat_._

_"Shut the fuck up, Drake." _A different voice, the one he had heard in that hospital room. But it wasn't what Scotty Summers had said in that hospital room, with his hand around his throat, that mattered. It was the stuff he _didn't_ say;

"You froze, Drake."

"You left Munroe alone, Drake."

_"You left her to die, Drake."_

It's safest in here, Robert Drake thought, as he pressed the button. As the door slowly opened, he looked out into the white hall beyond them.

A girl, kneeling on the floor, placed her face into her hands and vomited.

Drake squinted. "Kitty?" he called out, as he began to walk towards the door, gripping Munroe's gun. He walked slightly to the right of the elevator's open door as he tried to puzzle out what the girl was staring at. Snow fell in the room as if there was no ceiling and, all around the girl, sat several layers of fresh snow.

As he followed her gaze to the two staircases, Drake noticed the sound of heavy footsteps from within the space between them. Drake paused as a man walked from between the space between the staircases. A man made entirely of metal.

Drake noticed the man whipping something from his hands; something mostly red, but with traces of some grey... stuff. He crocked his heads and noticed something behind the man and, squinting, noticed two brown legs poking from underneath a skirt, the rest of the body hidden by the walls of the space.

Drake noticed the pool of blood slowly spreading underneath the skirt, down the legs.

Drake noticed the body attached to those legs. He gazed fixed itself on what, once upon a time, had been a whole human head.

* * *

Drakes rushed back into the elevator and frantically pressed the door button. Heavy echoing footsteps raced after him and, from between the elevator's two doors, Drake watched as the metallic man raced towards him. Drake fumbled with the door button again.

The man was now only a few feet away. Drake raised his hand and, from it, a great wall of ice filled the elevator's entrance.

A moment of silence followed. A slow series of footsteps approached from the other side of the ice. Drake moved backwards until he hit the elevator back wall, Munroe's gun held between both hands and aimed at the ice. The footsteps reached the ice and stopped. Drake drew in a long, whispered breath.

A steel arm crashed through the ice, sending chunks of it scattering over the floor. Drake unloaded his gun until he was neither sure of how many bullets he had fired, or how many had hit.

He tossed the gun-aside, and raised his hand once more, but everything went black as his head was hit by what felt like a brick wall. Drake fell to the floor screaming as he tried to cough out a mouthful of blood and broken teeth. He felt the brick wall kick him in the stomach, sending him crashing into the elevator wall. He felt himself picked up and thrown into the other wall.

He was pinned against the wall now. Drake could not see his attacker through the river of blood that ran from his temples. "You know what I hate?" whispered the Russian voice in his ear. The answer came shortly after a series of bricks were smashed repeatedly into Drakes stomach. Those are his fists, Drake thought; those are his _fists_. Ice cold fingers grasped his throat as Drake felt himself being raised to the ceiling of that small box. He felt the fingers tighten. He tried to fight against them but found no energy left for his arms.

A voice. "Let him go," it whispered. "Let him go or I'll have to put this bullet in your head."

The hand around Drake's throat tightened as a dry, humorless laugh bellowed in his ear. "Let him go? Do you really think your little gun can stop _me_, you little bitch-"

The man stopped mid sentence and, as the hand around his throat began to unclench, Drake fell to the ground. Coughing, he looked up at the monolith of a man who stood before him. The man was clutching his head with his hands, a queasy look on his face. Behind him stood Kitty Pryde, tears streaming down her face.

The grand doors of the entrance hall slammed open; a unit of heavily armed men advanced inside. The metal man fell to the floor, which collapsed inwards under the weight of his body.

Tears streamed down the face of Kitty Pryde. Drake saw no gun in her hand. More shouting from the men, then the sound of gunfire. The girl stood unfazed as the bullets rushed through her. As he laid spread on the floor, Drake could hear the sound of bullets bouncing against the floor around him.

"Kitty," he tried to croak, but by the time he managed it she had already disappeared into the floor. As a dozen or so footsteps approached him, Drake's vision began to fade.

"Miss Frost," he heard a muffled voice say, as he slowly slipped away. "We've found a survivor."

* * *

Lehnsherr's eyes darted behind him, beyond the doorway, as the sound of gunfire echoed throughout Strawberry Fields.

"Listen Erik," Xavier pleaded, his voice no longer slow and spread. "_Please. _You've got to get out of here while you still_ can_. Those men down there are probably Fury's. They'll kill you on _sight_."

"I'm not leaving here without them," said Lehnsherr, in a low voice. "I'm not leaving here without my children."

"If you care about getting them back then drop your _goddamn _death wish," screamed Xavier. "You must have known this was a trap, so why did you come_?_ Did you really just come here to offer yourself to the hounds, to give yourself an easy way out?" Lehnsherr turned his eyes back to Xavier and the old man seemed, momentarily, to retreat away from them. Within a second, his look of outrage returned itself and, clutching the arms of his wheelchair and throwing himself forward, he continued. "I can't believe that. I _don't_ believe it. Get to the roof and flee and I promise you, I _promise_ you, I_ will help yo_u_ find them."_

Lehnsherr let out a humorless laugh. "And should I just blindly trust you, _old friend? _Just like Logan did? Tell me Charles, after all that you've done, why should I trust a single thing you've said?"

A silence followed. Xavier turned his gaze to the open door. A bead of sweat made its way down his face. He looked towards Lehnsherr and, catching his eyes, Xavier was taken a back by the hatred he saw in them.

"You know," said Xavier, breaking the silence. "After everything, everything we've done _against_ each other, I still think there's room for trust. No, I _believe_ there is. It's true, we've diverted our paths too far to ever cross them again. But if they've really taken Wanda and Petro, if Fury has really done this..." He paused, looking down to his feet for words.

"Let me help you, Erik," he said, reciprocating Lehnsherr's gaze once more. "We may have grown to resent each other's separate paths. We might have even grown to resent _each other_. But I still believe, with all my heart, that we can still - and at the least, the _very_ least - trust each other."

Lehnsherr stood still, his eyes unmoving, as if he had turned to stone. Suddenly, he began to slowly lower his head. As if bowing, he raised his two hands to the side of his head and removed the purple helmet that sat on it. Holding it between his hands, he took a step towards Xavier. Xavier watched as the mans eyes lit up, his brow relaxed. A warm smile, one that seemed Lehnsherr seemed to halfheartedly try to repress, crossed the man's face.

"Yes," he smiled, finally leaving the doorway. "I think I can toast to that, Charl-

The sound of wind and crashing glass. Xavier dived to the floor, knocking his whisky glass off the table. It landed on its side and rolled away from him, towards where Lehnsherr once stood. From his position on the floor, Xavier watched as it clinked against the side of Lehnsherr's helmet.

Xavier tried to lift his lower body up, but instead winced as his hands cut themselves on the broken glass that covered the floor in front of him. He felt himself shiver as a ghastly wind made its way through the shattered window, bringing with it a small wave of snow.

"Erik," Xavier whispered, as he glanced around the floor. His eyes found his friend.

Before him, on the floor as well, he could see Erik Lehnsherr. Charles Xavier's eyes flooded with tears as he saw the small hole that now pierced the head of his old friend.

* * *

The man, who had once gone by the alias _Bullseye, _brought his eye again to the scope of the rifle. From the roof of the building opposite, he examined the result of his work. With just a small gripping of his forefinger, he had erased the existence of the world's most infamous mutant and, more importantly, the man who thrown him through the wall of a Parisian cafe with a white Toyota van.

It had been precise, _clean_. As soon as Erik Lehnsherr had left the doorway and crossed the window, the man had taken the shot. He had even waited for him to take off that helmet Miranda had kept going on about.

_Miranda. _Of course; he'd have to patch her. He held a hand against the device by his ear. "Miranda," he said into the microphone, "the target's down. Even managed to keep that fancy helmet of his in one piece."

Static followed for maybe a minute. The man looked through the scope again. The bald man, the one in the wheelchair he had been watching all day, had dragged himself across the floor to the body and, with one hand holding the body's shattered head, seemed to be weeping.

"Good work," said Miranda's distinct voice through the headset. "The next stage of the Operation Hellfire had been greenlit, I'm leaving with the dispatch team for Cornwall now, so I'll be going dark for the rest of the evening." The man stood up and shaked off the snow that had fallen on him over the last few hours, before making his way to the metal stairwell that ran down the side of the building. As he began to pull himself down the ladder, his earpiece buzzed once more.

"By the way," continued Nettle. "My employer, Miss Frost? She just asked me to pass on a message. She said: Thank you, your service has been invaluable. She looks forward to future opportunities between the two of you and would like to meet you very soon."

The man didn't respond, but merely smiled as he made his way down the stairs, his eyes guiding him through the darkness. As he turned his head to look out at the street, and the waves of snow that fell upon it, it struck him that his luck might just have changed for the better.

* * *

_"When the future's architectured, _

_By a carnival of idiots on show,_

_You better lie low;_

_And if you love me, won't you let me know?" _


	18. Part Three - Chapter Four (New!)

Nettle was listening to the sound of the dull, constant beating outside and almost missed the hiss of the radio transmission. 'Miranda,' said a male voice, making her jolt upright in her seat and hit her knee against the table. 'The target's down. Even managed to keep that fancy helmet of his in one piece.'

She signalled to the man by the communication equipment and, having caught his eye, mouthed a single word; 'Frost'. The man bolted upright, nearly sending his headphones flying, and began frantically working the dials. A sharp piercing; the line connecting. The hissing continued in Miranda's ear as she pulled the microphone on the table towards her. The hissing continued, until a single word broke the static.

'Report.'

She swallowed. 'Miss Frost, the operation at Strawberry Fields was apparently a success. Eric Lehnsherr has been terminated. Our agent was even able to avoid damaging the telepathy-damping device he wore, as requested.'

There was a silence for some thirty seconds. Had the transmission shorted out? Miranda cringed at the idea of having to explain that to Miss Frost. But she knew that wasn't likely the case; Miss Frost was probably relaying the information to other parties. Other parties far above Nettle. Individuals far above even a governmental institution.

'Very good Nettle,' said Miss Frost's voice. 'Very well done. Please express my deepest gratitude to your agent. Please inform him that I would like to meet him in person, to discuss his future prospects. Be assured, your management of the situation will not be overlooked.'

'Should I ask the agent for more information, ma'am? We don't know anything relevant to Katherine Pryde or Piotr Nik-'

'Not necessarily, Nettle. Not at all. I have sources at the scene relaying information. If that's all, _please_ proceed with the next stage of Operation Hellfire'.

The line went silent. Nettle stole a breath of air. She signalled the man by the coms equipment to give the word, before resting once more against the back of her chair. Her eyes glanced along the row of men opposite her, each one equipped with the latest in heavy-duty military equipment. Stark Tech, she believed. 'Oh,' she said, opening her eyes, 'Please put our agent in London back on the line.'

The line connected. She stretched her arm out for the microphone and brought it up to her reclining head. 'Good work,' she said, relaxing her eyes once more. 'The next stage of Operation Hellfire has been greenlit. I'm leaving with the dispatch team for Cornwall now, so I'll be going dark for the rest of the evening...'

The dull, constant beating continued to sound from outside, as the snow lashed against the metal shell of the helicopter.

* * *

Chapter Four

_"The cocoon surrounds you,_

_Embraces all._

_So you can sleep,_

_Fetus-style."_

Bjork, _All Neon Like_

* * *

'Jean. Are you even listening?'

As she startled out of her daze, Jean anticipated for a split second seeing the disproving face of 'Scotty' Summers, or even Xavier. It took her a moment to snap out of that strange mind and another few seconds to recognise Allerdyce.

'They've been ignoring us for too long now,' he continued. 'If London went according to their plan, Tutor would have reached our ear by now.'

'You might just be right,' she replied, as she fished into her pocket for her carton of cigarettes. Benson&amp;Hedges Gold, the kind Scotty used to smoke after his divorce. He had smoked maybe twenty of them a day in the two months before Jean herself had ran out on him.

'Jean, I am right. The plan was that, if we hadn't heard anything by midnight, we'd move to the safety location. It's now 2AM, Jean. That's why you need to make a decision. Something right now.'

As Jean thought about it, it dawned on her that she wasn't opposed to leaving. In fact, Jean suddenly noticed some deep desire to say goodbye to this metal house. It was as if, within those steel corridors and rooms, they had all been reduced to living as rats; no, they reduced _themselves _to rats. As if they had sought to hide from the searchlights above and so tunnelled instinctively into the ground. Dug, with no thought or care for the dirt they got in their fur.

Sure, sometimes they rose from their slumber and briefly resurfaced. South Kensington, Paris? Petty demonstrations of insolence, like petulant children throwing mud at windows. And what were the results, their accomplishments for all the noise they made? They had so far only managed to create further mess within an already ongoing shitstorm. In that moment, she wondered if Lehnsherr was like one of those old men who never grow out of their liberal youth, who stayed at the emptying bar till closing time ranting more and more about nuclear disarmament to the bartender with each passing pint. Could it be that, for all her loyalty and admiration for the man, Erik Lehnsherr was simply a fool who lacked the ability to see when to call it quits? Or, perhaps, lacked the ability to? In South Kensington they had killed several men in an effort to learn about Strawberry Field's new favourite toy and, in Russia, promptly stole it like a merry band of mischievous troublemakers. In Paris they 'saved' Kitty Pryde, but only after they themselves had made her an enemy of the state.

Fighting for the cause? Their cause was a reflexive one, whose sole aim was to routinely stub the toes of those they perceived as having wronged them, be it the UK Intelligence Service or the Russian Military Development Department. It didn't matter who you strike out against, to be honest. Not when you're in open rebellion against the world and everything in it.

But had they been wronged? Jean would not currently be hiding in a hole had she not followed Lehnsherr when he steered away from civilisation to claim his role as the reluctant revolutionary. Sometimes she wondered if Lehnsherr was just a fool; an old man who simply didn't know when to quit. Sometimes, she wondered if she was just a naive young girl who, where others her age rebelled through tattoos and piercings, decided instead to declare war on the entire world. She hated herself for both those thoughts.

'Jean,' Allerdyce hissed. She couldn't remember if she had even seen him lose his cool before. 'Make up your goddamn mind, woman. It could already be too late'.

She finished a long drag of her cigarette. 'We're packing up. Moving to somewhere safe. We've got two cars, so essential supplies only. Then try to contact Shaw and see if he can offer us a safer, more sustainable location to hide temporarily. We'll drop off the doc and your lady friend there, along with Missus Weapon X. Then, if Shaw hasn't got a clue and we haven't heard anything, you, me and Kurt will check out London.'

She watched Allerdyce's face relax; his brow resided and a hint of a grin returned. 'Get the message out over the intercom, John.' She turned away from him and made her way towards the door of the room. She didn't have much to pack herself, but there were still a few guns in the armoury they could take with them, although she couldn't in that moment guess what their ammunition supply was like right now; Shaw's next 'gift' supply was two weeks away. She decided to fill Kurt in via thought and, as she arrived at the door, began to search for him amongst the voices in her head.

Odd. She couldn't find him. And there almost seemed to be too many whispers. She put her hand out to open the door and stopped as the sound of a gunshot echoed through the metal corridor.

* * *

The doctor looked towards the source of the noise, towards the door that led out into the main corridor. He recognised the sound; a lifetime of memories spread across his vision. But this wasn't the home country. He wasn't with the Provisionals. Whatever was on his doorstep, it was an entirely different manner of Troubles.

He stalked towards his desk and pulled a small key from his pocket. After opening the bottom drawer, he pushed aside several bundles of male contraception (the supply of which was requested by the Frenchman, Allerdyce) and found what he was searching for; a small, antique revolver. One not marked down on the group's 'official' list of firearms. Something, instead, from the old country.

He carefully closed the drawer and, after a moment's hesitation, made his way slowly to the door of his makeshift clinic. He tried to listen past it; tried to visualise the scene behind it, using any noise he could detect. After maybe twenty seconds of silence, he placed his hand on the handle and pushed the door open.

Before him stood a formation of five or so figures, each heavily armoured in black combat gear, their faces hidden by a type of combat headgear he had never seen before. He was reminded, bizarrely, of Star Wars. Each of the figures were aiming the end of equally sophisticated looking assault riffles. Aiming, he realised, at himself.

He nodded towards them and slowly crouched towards the ground, placing his revolver gently on the steel floor. Then, with another nod, he rose up again, raising him arms into the air.

'What's the matter?' asked a voice from behind them.

'Ma'am, we haven't got this one on list,' came a male voice from one of the black Storm Troopers. 'Please advise.'

Footsteps sounded down the corridor and the black figures, with their rifles still trained on him, slowly broke formation in the middle, allowing through a young woman whose black suit somehow looked even more formal amongst the heavily armoured shades. He suddenly noticed the pool of blood that was slowly sliding against his foot. The source, he realised, was the girl with the scorpion tail; Elizabeth. He had spoken to her about birth control just a day ago and now she was laying in a puddle of her own blood. The exit wound on the back of her head was quite pronounced.

'I'm a civilian,' he said, raising his eyes in a conscious effort to meet the raven-haired woman. 'I'm not armed.'

'Mutant?' she asked. He nodded. 'What's your thing, paddy?'

His thing. He nodded again, to show he understood. 'I can heal organic matter. I'm not quite certain as to the science behind, but at the moment I am capable at causing an extreme rate of recovery of fairy substantial wounds through physical contact with the subject.'

She offered him a smile. For some reason, he got the impression that it was meant as an apology. 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'but you're not on the list. A shame, truly, but there we go. Now, _you came out here to kill yourself with that revolver_, didn't you?'

'Pardon?' he asked. 'I'm not entirely sure what you're...'

He paused, his words trailing off. Everything became... Misty. He closed his eyes and clenched his head. Kill myself? That's right, he thought, as the mist began to disperse. He lowered down towards the floor and picked up his gun. How silly of him to forget. He came out here to kill himself with the revolver.

He pushed the nuzzle against his temple and pulled the trigger.

* * *

A second gunshot sounded. If it was debatable before, then now it was a certainty. They were under attack.

'Jean,' Allerdyce whispered as he dimmed the room's lights. 'Have you got to him yet?'

'No,' she answered, lowering her hands from the side of her head. 'It's like he's not here. I think, I think Kurt's _gone_'. She made her way to join Allerdyce on the other side of the room. As she arrived at his side, Allerdyce turned the lights off completely and, grabbing her hand, pulled her behind the wooden desk.

'Gone?' Allerdyce hissed, as they crouched down behind it it. He gripped her hand, just hard enough to cause Jean some pain. 'As in, he's just jumped ship?'

Jean stared at him for a moment. He had always been so calm before, never losing his cool. They were so close that she could smell his stale, machine gun breathing. She stared into his wide eyes. 'No, I was trying to find him as I was leaving. As in, I don't think he _jumped_. I couldn't find him _before_ the gunshot. I don't think he's here. Like, I don't think he _was_ here.'

Did she just see Allerdyce grimace, despite the darkness? 'I spoke to him, what, thirty minutes ago Jeany-baby. He wasn't here? Are you sure?.'

Sure? She remembered the whispers; none familiar, they had all been strangers. _The whispers_. She closed her eyes and opened her mind again. She was in every corridor and every room of the construct. Blind, but listening. There were strangers in their home; several of them. No, many. In fact...

'John,' she nearly yelled. 'I can't find _any_ of them,' she continued, over his attempts to shush her. 'Kurt, Elizabeth, the Doctor... The girl, Weapon _whatever_, too. They're all _gone_.'

'All of them?' Allerdyce whispered. 'But there were only two gunshots. They can't all have been...' He stopped, as what sounded like footsteps began to echo. Jean looked towards the door. One, two...

'How many?'

Three... Four- No... _Yes_, four... Five... Six...

'Jean, how many?'

'Shut the fuck up, I'm trying. At least eight, I can _feel_ eight, no, _nine_ people. Possibly more.'

'_More_?'

'Definitely more. Twelve...'

'A whole fucking _army_?'

'John, what are we going to do?'

He looked at her, his mouth open. He rose his chest slowly upward and stared across the surface of the desk towards the door. His tongue brushed past his lips and slowly circled against both surfaces. 'Jean,' he said, as the sound of the footsteps grew in volume. 'I need you to keep your head down girl.'

The footsteps stopped. She thought she saw Allerdyce's hand move slowly to his pocket.

The door opened.

The black figures seemed to battle against the tide of fire, their screaming fusing with the hissing of the flames. Jean found herself pulled to her feet by Allerdyce and rushed towards the flaming doorway. The flames separated as they approached, at the signal of his outstretched hand. She glanced around the corridor. Blackened metal surfaces and two shades writhing against the flames that consumed them. 'How many in total Jean?' Allerdyce yelled over the noise. 'How many can you find?' She watched the figures each collapse onto the floor, their screaming becoming more strained. More exhausted.

'Just under two dozen,' Jean said, pulling her eyes away from the burning men. 'And that's just the ones _in-range _that I can feel.'

'We've got to fight our way through.' Jean noticed that Allerdyce was wearing what she now considered his trademark smile. Only this time, she noted, it seemed to be upside down. 'Fuck it.'

Jean gasped as she hit the floor. Had he meant to push so hard? 'John,' she breathed, pushing herself back onto her feet. 'What the fuck?'

'Get out of here. Up to the mansion and run.'

She went to grab him by the arm and cringed as she felt his elbow slam into her stomache. She took two small steps backwards before toppling over onto her knees. She raised one arm up, her palm outstretched, as the other cradled her belly. She stopped herself just in time before the thought fully formed; _send him flying_.

'If they've fucked Tutor and the others then, well, it's just fucking upto _you_ now. You're the only one who'll take fucking charge. Get out of here and get to the safety location. The one we all agreed on. Get their and find the others.'

'John,' she whispered.

'They came down from this end. That means they've already secured the centre down here. You've got to make you way down behind you. I'll bait them here. Force them to tunnel down towards me. You get it? _You circle around_.' Jean rose to her feet. 'I'll be fine,' he continued. Jean noticed that he was smiling. It wasn't, however, a convincing grin. 'These cocksuckers haven't got shit on me, you _know_ that. I'll meet you at Lehnsherr's place. Now just fucking _go_.'

Jean gave him a small nod and hoped that, in the moment before she charged down the hallway, he hadn't noticed the tears welling in her eyes.

* * *

He jumped back as another wave of bullets bounced off the wall. Even more grunts were coming down the hallway. More for the ash pile, he thought.

Allerdyce clicked back the hood of his lighter and pulled the fire out. Made it spread; _expand_. He held it, let it etch closer and closer to a boiling point, then chucked it around the corner of the doorway, down the corridor.

High pitched screaming. More gunfire. He could smell a fresh wave of burning flesh and hair. It made him smile.

Allerdyce stepped closer again to the doorway and, with one hand pressed against the door frame, the other clutching his lighter, leaned over to look at the hallway to his right. Some seven or so grey silhouettes now laid collapsed on the floor; a pile of still-burning flesh, bone and smoking ash. Each one brought a rush of pride rising in his chest; each was one less person who could catch Jean.

Had he given her enough time already? She said there was definitely twelve or so of these grunts about, but those were only the ones she could locate with her psycho-jumbo. If this was truly a military operation they were caught in, then it was clear to Allerdyce that escape wouldn't be as simple as mowing down a couple dozen soldiers. Whatever reason they had for attacking them, it meant that whoever was pulling the strings were likely committing a lot of resources to all this. As he looked down on the pile of ashy corpses, Allerdyce decided that at least he could take some solace in the fact that, whoever these guys were, it seemed they were pretty fond of repeating the same tactic again and again.

He heard another pair of footsteps approaching and drew back into the room, flicking back the top of his lighter. How much fuel did it have left? At this point it was probably running low and, unfortunately, he didn't have the foresight at the time to pocket a few extra zippos.

'Hello?' someone shouted. A _female _someone? Allerdyce gripped his lighter and stepped against the wall. 'Mr Allerdyce, can you _hear_ me?'

'Of course dear,' he shouted back, 'I can _hear_ you just fine.' This was certainly a new tactic on their part. Had they gotten tired of sending men into his oven and sent some tart to coax him out? 'Sorry Miss, but would you care to explain who the _fuck_ you are?'

'My _name's_ Miranda Nettle, Mr Allerdyce. I've been asked to discuss with you the possibility of us _employing_ you, you see. But first, _aren't you extremely tired, _Mr Allerdyce? _Don't you just feel the need to take a rest from all this and have a nice nap_?'

Employment? Who were these people; some sort of mercenary contractors? 'I'm sorry my dear,' he shouted back, 'but I'm afraid I'm... I'm...'

Tired. He suddenly felt actually quite tired. She was right, now that he thought of it. He was extremely tired. _Shattered_. Maybe he should stop and rest. Maybe, Allerdyce decided, he really should just close his eyes and sleep. Yes, that seemed to him the best idea...

* * *

Jean stopped at the metal door, hands on her knees and panting. The door, behind which stood old stone steps which led into the basement, was missing most of its surface. A large hole, more than the size of a man, had been cut through its thick metal structure. The edges of its circle still shone red. We didn't _hear them do this_, she thought. What sort of equipment did these people have access to, that they were able to do this without any noise?

She looked back behind her. Gunfire had been sounding for the past couple of minutes as she raced through the complex, but it has been some thirty seconds since she heard the last bout of screams. Had Allerdyce managed to fend them all off? She stepped back and lent against a section of the door that remained intact. Was it possible that Allerdyce has managed to not only survive the onslaught, but massacre every single intruder?

She didn't want to leave him. As she ran for the exit, she came across the bodies of Elizabeth and the doctor. They had, from what information her passing inspection could inform her, been executed. A single bullet to the head, each. She had tried to reach Kurt while she ran and still no answer. It seemed to her as if there was no one left. The threesome who had left for London were two hours late on their report, and she understood perfectly what that likely meant.

If things had gone south in London, then was this Strawberry Field's counterattack? She almost couldn't believe the idea of Charles Xavier putting together a murder squad to wipe them out. But that was impossible anyway; they couldn't have known about their location. Not unless someone in London had been made to talk. Actually, she could see that; Kitty Pryde strapped to a chair, being tugged, pulled and prodded in every conceivable way. How long would it realistically take for a young girl like her to break? But she was _blindfolded_ on the journey here. Yes, she had stayed with them for nearly a week now, but surely they couldn't have pinpointed a location from any information Kitty could give.

'Hurry the fuck _up_, John,' she whispered as she looked down the hallway. She didn't have the time to wait for him. They must have reinforcement; people on coms who'd rush in on hearing that their comrades had been decimated by a pyromaniac. She didn't have the time to wait for him.

She turned around and, raising her leg over the bottom of the scorched metal, bowed her head and stepped through the circle. She just didn't have the time. She couldn't wait any longer. She didn't have a choice... Right?

She raced up the stairs and into the darkness, using one outstretched hand to feel the cold stone wall as she made her way up. A cold breeze sliced against her face. She tripped as she got to the end of the stairwell and fell onto the stone floor of the mansion's basement. She struggled for breath, her body aching from the pain of the impact, but still raised herself up and sped towards the wooden stairs that would take her to the ground floor.

She made her way up those stairs, into the kitchen. She paused; she listened. If there were noises, her breathing and heartbeat were drowning them out. She sped through the door, through the hallway and then through the mansion's open front door and then

A harsh white light greeted her, forcing her to pause in her tracks. A sound; loud. She raised an arm, fruitlessly trying to fight against the burning light. She squinted, squinted so hard that her eyes were almost closed. Her nostrils were overwhelmed by the scent of pine and gasoline.

Black figures. Guns, aimed at her. Shouting, distorted, like someone using a microphone. She realised where the blinding light was coming from and struggled to make out the helicopter behind the whiteness.

Huh?

Something had stung her neck. A bee? That couldn't be right. That couldn't...

Her head felt heavy. She went to raise her arm, to touch her neck, but found she had no strength. She frowned and forced her arm up. Forced it to her neck. There was... Was something in her neck. Felt like... A pen. A thin pen with something on the end. A... A dart...?

She fell to the floor; couldn't help it. She felt like her body was seizing up. She felt like a vase; a vase slowly being emptied of its water. She couldn't... She could not keep her eyes open. She curled up in the snow, like a fetus in a womb, and put all her strength, what was _left_ of her strength, into listening.

'...final target's down, Miss... Should be... for several hours. Enough time... London... for reconditioning...'

Jean thought she could hear birds singing. Birds singing, at this... At this sort of time? She decided, in that final moment of consciousness, that all the noise must have woken them up.


	19. (Author Notes) (New!)

Whew. That chapter took quite a bit out of me...

Very sorry for the delay, had quite a few things pop up since last September (housing crisis, studies etc) that blocked me from writing this chapter. I never relished the thought of getting to this chapter; something I have to write to get to the more juicy stuff in the next two chapters. I'm not a big fan of writing action sequences and doing so bores me to death, so it didn't help when in September, with 2,000 words written for this chapter, my laptop's harddrive died and I lost not only most of this current chapter, but about 3,000 words I had written for the next two. I hope you can understand why it's taken me so long, along with other complications this past year, to come back to this.

Anyway, from here out this part of the story is going to move onto two chapters, two episodes, that I've always gotten a buzz when thinking about. As you can tell, the suprises and shocks of this Part aren't quiet over yet... I do hope you'll all enjoy the direction the story plunges into in the next few chapters; you could possibly piece together a few guesses based on a few hints I've left sowed in the first half of this Part.

Two more chapters and Part 3 will be finished; there'll be plenty of rubble for the (surviving) characters to trying and pick themselves up from. I'll have to take a bit of a pause at the end of this part to consider the length and pacing of the rest of the tale; I always thought this story would be told in 5 parts (we would, theoretically, be half way through now), but with the amount of character movement and resolution I plan on giving the story before it ends, I do wonder if I'll be able to fit all the events that the characters push through into only two parts... A topic for a later time, however!

As always, if you've enjoyed the story so far, or simply have some thoughts on it, please please _please _share them in the review section. As much as I've enjoyed getting to the end of each chapter and pushing the upload button, nothing is more pleasurable than hearing your thoughts on it all. So please, don't feel shy; any thoughts, any opinions, any criticisms or speculation - SHARE! :D

All the best,

Casey Neate


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